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THE RECONSTRUCTION OF 
THE AMERICAN CHURCH 

BY 

WALTER M. HAUSHALTER 

Author of ''Christ Lord of Battles" 




BOSTON 

RICHARD G. BADGER 

THE GORHAM PRESS 



Copyright, 1919, by Richard G. Badger 



All Rights Reserved 



7P 



OCT -4 1919 



Made in the United States of America 



The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. 



©CI. A 5 3 5 104 



TO 

THE WOMAN 

WHO HAS MADE LIFE FRAGRANT 

WITH THE IDEALISM 

OF CHRIST 



INTRODUCTION 



"Js Thou didst send Me into the world even so 
send I them. I pray that they may all be one, 
even as Thou, Father, art in Ale and I in Thee, 
that the world may believe that Thou didst send 
Me. And the glory which thou hast given Ale 
I have given unto them, that they may be one 
even as We are one; I in them and Thou in Me, 
that they may be perfected into one; that the 
world may know that Thou didst send me. ,} 
Jesus, John 17:18-23. 

"Even as we have many members in one body, 
and all the members have not the same office; so 
we, who are many, are one body in Christ and 
severally members one of another ! } Paul, Ro- 
mans 12:4-5. 



INTRODUCTION 

THE two determining forces of society, the 
Radical and the Conservative, the Heretical 
and the Orthodox, the Progressive and the Reac- 
tionary, are engaged in a powerful tug-of-war 
to-day to plot the future orbit of the Church. 
To those happy and "divine-minded" ones who 
can attain sufficient elevation of soul to view 
without prejudice the issues of the conflict, it will 
become apparent that both Radical and Conserva- 
tive, both Heretical and Orthodox, both Progres- 
sive and Reactionary are required to make the 
future Church orbit safe. Both these determin- 
ing forces are as necessary to the Church as are 
the centrifugal and centripetal forces to the 
earth to hold it in its orbit about the sun. Were 
the Radical, Heretical, Progressive, centrifugal 
force to contribute its influence alone to the earth 
our planet would wander off into the void of the 
Universe, a flaming but soon burnt-out meteor. 
And were the Conservative, Orthodox, Reaction- 



8 Introduction 

ary, centripetal influence alone to hold sway the 
earth's career would be direct to the heart of 
the sun, the central furnace of destruction. The 
Church needs both forces, and this realization 
should usher a new era of tolerance and "di- 
vine-mindedness" into the counsels and campaigns 
of the "Body of Christ." 

To all contending parties in the Church and 
out of it to-day there are not wanting signs to 
indicate a change in the future orbit of the Insti- 
tution of Christ. The War has shifted the foci 
and the orbit accordingly. This is a strategic 
time for the Church to revamp and revalue its 
ideals and its methods, to overhaul its machinery, 
and to give pragmatic denial to the cynical claim 
that we are "all dressed up and nowhere to go." 
The time for reconstruction is here and the Church 
must once and for all wrench itself loose from the 
deadly notion that it is working for its own sake 
rather than for the Kingdom of God. The time 
is strategic and bursting with the sense of a new 
and Pentecostal visitation of God. 

There is a tide in the affairs of men, 

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; 

Omitted, all the voyage of their life 



Introduction 

Is bound in shallows and in miseries. 
On such a full sea are we now afloat 
And we must take the current when it serves 
Or lose our ventures. 



The one mighty and conclusive conviction that 
throbs in the Church of Christ to-day is the im- 
perative and impressive necessity of a closer 
Unity. Words fail us to express the full and 
crying mandamus of this necessity, for words, as 
Alfred Noyes says, were not made for such times 
as these. All over Christendom the conscience 
is burning and struggling for articulate voice, 
pleading for Unity. The War has shown that 
the veto of the Almighty is on our divisions. Let 
those come forward and say who they are, who 
can defend or even tolerate the individualism 
and selfishness of our past and jerky denomina- 
tionalism. Only one threatening and negative 
word need be said, that is, if the Church does 
not attain to and function in unison, the prophecy 
of the cynical guest in Steven Graham's Priest of 
the Ideal may come true — "that the Church is 
here merely on sufferance." 

Lovers of Kipling will recall his Without Ben- 
efit of Clergy. It is a beautiful love story of 



io Introduction 

the marriage of an English captain and a lovely 
Mohammedan woman. These two souls, widely- 
separated in race and religion, were bound to- 
gether in deepest spiritual devotion. A child was 
born to them and they were happy with a happi- 
ness the angels would envy. The mother was 
all devotion, absorbed in the life of her child. 
They were both happy beyond measure with a 
happiness absolute and withdrawn from the 
world. But the mother feared the powers were 
jealous of their happiness and would steal the 
child away. So it was. The accounts were audited 
with a big red pencil that summer. The cholera 
came from all quarters of the compass. It struck 
a pilgrim gathering at a shrine and thousands 
died at the feet of their gods. The pestilence 
broke over the face of all India. People fleeing 
to the mountains died by the roadside. The 
Mohammedan calls to prayer were unceasing, but 
the gods seemed strangely inattentive in those 
days. 

The captain and his wife lost their child. The 
beautiful little spirit was shaken out of the body 
with fever. The mother was mad with anguish 
and grief. The captain went to the bedside of his 



Introduction 1 1 

wife and looked down upon her with infinite com- 
passion. "Life of my life," said the woman, 
"breath of my soul! Yesterday we were three; 
to-day we are two; therefore there is the more 
reason that to-morrow we should be one." 

If the Great War with its infinite losses of the 
sons of the Church does not stir us to a new con- 
science on our "Oneness" then indeed the Church 
has lost its divine opportunity. But the con- 
science of Christendom is agitated, its voice is 
sounding in articulate measures for a new Unity. 
We were three yesterday, two to-day. Shall we 
be one to-morrow? 

The consensus of public thought has inclined 
overpoweringly to the conviction that a new day 
for Christianity finds dawn after the war. But 
why shorten the arm of the Almighty? Already 
a new hour has struck — an hour that declares the 
night far spent and the day at hand. Through 
the bewildering maze and over the chaos of de- 
nominational division the Spirit of God is brooding 
to-day and a new conscience is speaking for Chris- 
tian reorganization. Time and the war with mighty 
creative fingers have been at work upon the Church 
of Christ to soften and mellow the severities and 



1 2 Introduction 

angularities of the sects. Bolivar, the great Wash- 
ington of South America, cried out in despair 
when all his attempt to unite his people proved 
fruitless. "Alas!' he said, "I have ploughed the 
sand and it has no consistency or unity." For 
some decades past narrow-visioned Churchmen 
have mouthed their denominational shibboleths — 
Baptist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Methodist, 
Congregationalist, Disciple of Christ — but to-day 
prophets of reconciliation and apostles of a more 
united Church are popular, and their ploughs 
shall find fertile ground. The call of Christ to 
bind up the wounds of war is so urgent and in- 
sistent that that Church which now wastes time to 
plead denominational issues stands anathema and 
convicted before her Lord of high treason and 
betrayal. 

Several years ago Bishop Boyd Carpenter and 
the Dean of Durham visited an American con- 
ference in behalf of Christian union and gave 
startling expression to the conviction that, unless 
the churches ceased preaching their divisive, 
sectarian issues, their baptisms and apostolic suc- 
cessions, and addressed themselves to the holy 
task of binding together the nations in the bond 



Introduction 13 

of brotherhood, some great calamity would befall 
Europe and the world. And now that the pre- 
dicted "Pentecost of calamity" has fallen, surely 
the Church of Christ will not fail to learn to-day 
what it refused to learn then, namely, the shame 
and scandal and wickedness of presenting a divided 
front to the sin of the world. It is worse than 
wormwood and gall, it is heart-ache and heart-sob, 
to invoice the numberless hairsplittings, two-by 
fourisms, and dogcollarisms of our denominational 
Christianity. The world has a right to lay accusa- 
tion against the churches that for many years they 
have wasted strength on trivialities and found 
themselves helpless in great crises. 

But anxious hearts are beating to-day the mes- 
sage that a new hour has come for our troubled 
Israel. Surely now is the accepted time and now 
the effectual and open door of opporunity to throw 
upon this problem of Church reorganization all 
the tremendous weight of public opinion. Why 
should we not tear down the divisive fences 
through which we have been crawling like naughty 
boys these past decades? Why not, as Principal 
Selbie said, shake ourselves free from our evasions 
and shufflings and be manly and open, walking in 



14 Introduction 

the daylight of Unity? Must the Church alone to- 
day defend division when all the other organiza- 
tions of the world move toward unity ! 

In the closing days of February, 1814, when 
Europe was under the shadow of defeat from 
Napoleon, the Allied Powers — England, Prussia, 
Austria, Russia — met in conference at Chaumont. 
Just before Chaumont, Austria, Prussia, and Rus- 
sia were sick to death of war and would gladly 
have patched up a craven peace with Napoleon. 
But at the Conference of Chaumont the Allied 
Powers found unity and they sacredly bound them- 
selves together to battle until France should be 
humbled and Napoleon unseated. Within two 
months the new unity of Chaumont was visible ; the 
Allies were in Paris and on April 6th, 1 8 14, Napo- 
leon abdicated. The Church of Christ has much 
to learn from military science and it cannot too 
soon take to its heart the urgency of Unity of effort 
in the warfare against principalities and powers 
and spiritual evil in high places. The war has 
profoundly solemnized the Church and an hour of 
insistence has struck like the Reformation hour of 
the 1 6th Century, an hour pregnant with destiny 



Introduction 15 

like the Pentecostal hour of the 1st Century; it 
is an hour in which to close up the breaches in 
the ramparts of Christianity. 

A conviction now burns in many devout Chris- 
tians that the next twenty-five or fifty years will 
witness one of the greatest religious revivals in 
the history of Christendom. Romain Rolland has 
it that the war has already demonstrated two 
things, the power of Hell and the present weakness 
of the Christian Church. To think that during 
all these years of military preparation the Church 
never organized its conscience to combat it ! The 
war shall not have been totally in vain if the 
Church is shaken out of its lethergy and slumber 
and division. Like the daughter of Abraham 
whom Satan had bound lo! these years, so the 
Church needs the healing touch. 

Forgive, O Lord, our severing ways, 

The separate altars that we raise, 

The varying tongues that speak thy praise. 

Suffice it now in time to be 

Shall one great Temple rise to Thee, 

Thy Church our broad Humanity! 

Thoughtful minds to-day are doubtful about the 
continuance of denominationalism but ever re- 



1 6 Introduction 

newed confidence is forthcoming regarding the 
Church itself against which the gates of Hell can- 
not prevail. Denominational pleas are as dead 
as a dodo and ready for burial; shibboleths, points 
of bristling antagonism, the incubus of division 
must yield to the spirit of unity in the bond of 
peace. It has been remarked that we are living 
in one of those spiritual crises of history that 
constitutes a second coming of our Lord; that 
if a Hebrew prophet were alive he would describe 
the world situation in glowing apocalyptic lan- 
guage announcing the end of the age and the de- 
scent of the Lord on the clouds of Heaven. In 
this renewed spiritual appearance of our Lord one 
of the sweet tokens of it shall be a new spirit of 
cooperation in His Church. The Christian ship 
shall no longer be as one propelled by a few hand- 
kerchiefs held before the breeze but driven by the 
united sails raised to the wind of God's Pente- 
costal Spirit. The time rapidly approaches; the 
days are prophetic and the hours are racing and 
tripping over one another to greet the Divine 
consummation. 



Introduction 17 

It will come! It will come! As the day comes 

When the night is done, 
And the silver streak on the ocean's cheek 

Grows into the mighty sun! 

Walter M. Haushalter. 
New York City, 
July, 1919. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Part i 
Christian Unison 23 

Part ii 
Christian Uniformity 47 

Part hi 
Christian Unity 71 

Part iv 
Christian Union 97 



PART I 

CHRISTIAN UNISON 



"There are diversities of gifts, but the same 
Spirit. And there are diversities of ministration, 
but the same Lord. For as the body is one and 
hath many members, so also is Christ. If the foot 
shall say, Because I am not the hand I am not of 
the body, it is not therefore not of the body. God 
set the members each one of them in the body as 
it pleased Him. The eye cannot say to the hand, 
I have no need of thee; or again the head to the 
feet, I have no need of thee. Nay, much rather, 
those members of the body which seem to be more 
feeble are necessary. God tempered the body 
together, giving more abundant honor to that part 
which lacked, that there should be no schism in 
the body. Now ye are the body of Christ! 9 Paul, 
I Cor. 12:4-27. 

"Be ye not called masters; One is your Master, 
even Christ, and all ye are brethren" Jesus, Matt. 
23:10. 



THE RECONSTRUCTION OF 
THE AMERICAN CHURCH 

CHRISTIAN UNISON 

AS one surveys the gamut of Christian 
Churches to-day, Scientist, Methodist, 
Quaker, Baptist, Presbyterian, Episcopal, one 
must confess an amazement at the general the- 
ological attitude upon the subject of the healing 
powers of the Church. If, outside a few chosen 
sects, one gives voice to his faith in the healing 
Christ of to-day, those with theological ramrods 
down their backs will hasten to convict such an 
one of fanaticism and apologize for him to the 
neighbors. Most orthodox churches have now as- 
sumed that those great legacies of healing miracles 
ceased when the Apostles fell asleep. And yet 
there is no other subject more clearly set forth 
in the teachings of Christ and the Apostles than 
the perpetuity of the healing power, the perpetuity 
23 



24 Reconstruction of the American Church 

of every ordering and furniture and gift of the 
New Testament days. Jesus Himself had a two- 
fold ministry to sinful souls and suffering bodies 
and He commissioned His followers to heal the 
sick; and when He departed His earthly ministry 
He gave a commission to His disciples to go into 
all the world. The signs to follow them that 
believed were healing of the sick and casting out 
of devils. Jesus did not separate the commission 
to preach from that to heal, nor did He confine it 
to the Twelve, nor did He place any time limit 
upon its power. With rugged exegesis the Church 
will do well to-day to accept all the great com- 
mission, and instead of limiting it with dates and 
provisos, give it a solemn Amen ! 

The Apostles themselves did not unbraid the 
twofold cord of promise but went out on a two- 
fold commission to preach and to heal, in the 
name of One Who promised that they would do 
greater things than He because He went unto 
the Father. Dr. Uhlhorn, who has thoroughly 
mastered the evidence on the case, proves con- 
clusively that these gifts of healing continued to 
operate into the second and third centuries. Jesus 
had made no provision to arrest the stream of 



Christian Unison 25 

divine manifestations, and in the writings of the 
Church Fathers we find abundant testimonies to 
the performance of the same kind of miracles of 
healing known to Peter and John and Paul. Justin 
Martyr, Tertullian, Origen, Irenius, are eloquent 
in their testimonies of the souls won through 
bodies healed. The weight of these and similar 
testimonies is increased by the fact that most of 
the great spiritual revivals of faith of the last 
nineteen centuries have had that accompaniment 
of the gifts of healing. Consider the Walden- 
sians, that faithful people who kept the fires of 
faith burning through the Papal darkness ; in their 
Church law they "hold it an article of faith to 
anoint with oil and heal the sick as declared by 
James, and any despiser of this ordinance is to be 
punished and corrected according to the rules of 
the Evangelical Law." Or consider Zinzendorf 
of the Moravians: "I owe this testimony to my 
beloved Church that Apostolic powers are there 
manifested in healing of maladies, cancers, con- 
sumptives by prayer." Or consider the "Scot 
Worthies," with their modern Acts of the Apos- 
tles, or the healing powers of the Huguenots. And 
what shall we say more for time would fail us to 



26 Reconstruction of the American Church 

mention Bruce and George Fox and Alexander 
Campbell. 

When one considers that all these testimonies 
are recorded of the holiest men the Church of 
Christ has ever known, it ought to give food for 
reflection to those who contend that the gifts 
of healing have departed the present-day Church 
of Christ. Here surely is a mass of evidence few 
would wish to condemn as utterly false. All the 
mighty gifts of God are meant to be perpetual; 
justification, salification, redemption, as given 
by Jesus to the world, have not been abrogated 
or annuled. Why then the gift of healing? Chris- 
tian healing was not meant to be one of those 
African rivers growing narrower and narrower 
until lost in the desert, but a mighty stream broad- 
ening to the sea. John in Revelation describes 
the tree of Life whose leaves are for the healing 
of the nations and "it bears twelve manner of 
fruit, and yields its fruit every month." That tree 
has given out fresh shoots and leaves of piety and 
healing and fruit with every passing month 
through the centuries since John's vision. 

Now these words on the healing function of 
Christ's Church are^ given at this length in intro- 



Christian Unison 27 

duction because the world today is agonizing for 
healing. 

The planet in this hour is torn by the 
wounds of war and where is there any power 
given under Heaven among men whereby it can 
be healed other than through Christianity! The 
wounds of war, the toxemia of sin, the blood 
poison of international bitterness, the soul-sickness 
of paganism, the ennui of world weariness "fair 
hidden yet full confessed," the cancer of militar- 
ism, the melancholia of materialism — all await and 
reach out for the healing touch of the Body of 
Christ. Will the Church to-day be equal to the 
challenge of a sick and wounded world and prove 
Physician ? 

Avowedly and confessedly ! Before the Church 
can effectively cure the ills of the world it must 
cure itself ! Physician, heal thyself. "Ye are the 
Body of Christ," says Paul, "and members one 
of another." "As the body is one and hath many 
members, so also is Christ. If the foot shall 
say, Because I am not of the body is it not there- 
fore not of the body? And if the ear shall say, 
Because I am not the eye I am not of the body, 
is it not therefore not of the body? But now hath 



28 Reconstruction of the American Church 

God set the members each one of them in the body 
as it pleased Him. The eye cannot say to the 
hand, I have no need of thee ; nor again the head 
to the feet, I have no need of thee. Nay, much 
rather, those members of the body which seem to 
be more feeble are necessary; and those parts of 
the body which we think to be less honorable, upon 
these we bestow the more abundant honor. God 
tempered the body together, giving more abundant 
honor to that part which lacked, that there should 
be no schism in the body, but that the members 
should have the same care one for another. And 
whether one member suffer all the members suffer 
with it ; or one member is honored all the members 
rejoice with it. Now ye are the body of Christ 
and severally members thereof." "Now there are 
diversities of gifts but the same Spirit. And there 
are diversities of administration but the same 
Lord. And there are diversities of working but 
the same God Who worketh in all things." 

Paul's analogy is more than a metaphor or 
simile ; it is meant to be literal transcript of fact. 
"Ye are the body of Christ!" That body of 
Christ cuddled by Mary in Nazareth, that body 
of Christ presented at the Temple for dedication, 



Christian Unison 29 

that body of Christ torn and tempted and victori- 
ous in the wilderness, that body of Christ that 
touched and healed and "out of whom went vir- 
tue," that body of Christ broken for us on Calvary, 
that body of Christ glorified and risen — that body 
of Christ is the Church! The Church is not a 
mere organization; it is an organism! And if 
Christ's body had healing powers in its touch when 
He dwelt in the flesh "full of grace and truth," 
why should not His body, His reincarnation, His 
Church, possess the healing power to-day for the 
world's agonizing and pitiable sores? The answer 
to this is that the members of Christ's body do 
not have the coordination of movement, the unison 
of mind and heart and purpose, necessary to this 
healing task. Once the Church or Body of Christ 
acquires that unison of brain, heart, hand, foot, 
eye, — all — then the Great Physician shall be able 
to heal the Twentieth Century World ! 

A quarter of a century ago Phillips Brooks 
looked sadly out upon the divided condition of 
Christendom and declared its divisions reminded 
him of the various members of an orchestra tun- 
ing up. But to what are we tuning up ?, he asks. 
We are tuning up to the keynote of Christian 



30 Reconstruction of the American Church 

service and love, the Social Gospel and the Social 
task of the Church. If the Churches were willing, 
thought Brooks, to lose their lives in social service 
they would gain them in Christian unison, the 
unison of the vast orchestra of God. The task 
of presenting the truth and music of Christ with 
melody to the world is quite too great a task for 
any one Church fellowship. Each member of 
the orchestra ought not to look only on its own 
things but on the things of others. Bishop An- 
derson of the Conference of 1908 ennunciated a 
fine principle when he declared that we must reach 
Christian reorganization not by excluding but by 
including all faiths and forms of Christianity. 
Bishop Anderson calls for a religion of maximums, 
not of minimums. "Let all the separated parts 
of Christendom pour out the treasures of their 
experiences ; and let them equally desire to receive 
from one another the gifts they do not already 
possess. So shall we have in the great Church of 
the future not an impoverished form of Christian- 
ity, but a Church which is enriched with all the 
wealth of the Christian ages." In the harmony 
of such a divine orchestra the Methodists shall not 
say to the Presbyterians, I have no need of thee ; 



Christian Unison 31 

nor the Baptists to the Christian Scientists, I have 
no need of thee; nor the Quakers to the Catholics, 
I have no need of thee. And such a unison can 
be produced only through the Great Orchestra 
Leader, Jesus Christ, who for this long time has 
endured the contradiction of sinners. 

To effect this longed-for unison or orchestration 
or harmony of the Church of Christ three steps 
are discernible and possible : — municipal federa- 
tion, national federation, international federation. 

The proposal of municipal federation ap- 
proaches most immediately to the heart of the 
problem, which in Carlyle's phrase is a "hungry 
problem." Why should not all the Churches of 
Christ of a city (or, where the city be large, of a 
portion of a city) officially delegate Elders or 
Deacons or Bishops to a general Board of Di- 
rectors? Let these officers of local churches so 
delegated be empowered to act in matters of com- 
mon interest to all the Churches. Let every local 
church claiming to follow and propagate Christ 
be given representation on a pro rata basis of 
membership. Such a general Board of Bishops or 
Elders or Deacons of the municipal Church of 
Christ would accomplish untold good for the cause 



32 Reconstruction of the American Church 

of religion. In an overchurched quarter, union of 
local units could be effected with tremendous econ- 
omy of money and effort. In one Western city 
of one thousand population three churches, Bap- 
tist, Congregational, and Presbyterian, united re- 
cently to worship as one congregation in one build- 
ing and under one spiritual leader. The three 
Churches are kept intact and a pro rata division 
of missionary funds made. It is Church Unison. 
Such a General Board of Elders of the Municipal 
Church of Christ could also plan unison of em- 
phasis and appeal on civic matters. Movements 
for prohibition, relief of social evils, missionary 
propaganda, educational and spiritual ideals could, 
through such a centralized municipal Bishopric, 
find unity and coherence and consequent power. 
The appointment of such a municipal Bishopric 
would demand a great deal of Christian love and 
tolerance. Much history would have to be for- 
gotten. But brotherhood, in Roosevelt's phrase, 
is a u weasel-word" that has the power to suck 
life blood. Brotherhood must prevail and the 
spirit of Anti-Christ sectarianism scourged out of 
the conference room. Perhaps this tide of brother- 
hood would rise so high as to give inter-denomina- 



Christian Unison 33 

tional assent to the membership of all professed 
believers in the body of Christ and a free and 
unhampered exchange of membership in local con- 
gregations. Perhaps this tide of brotherhood and 
spiritual fellowship would rise so high as to give 
inter-denominational assent to the Holy Spirit's 
ordination of all the Ministry. Such a municipal 
Bishopric or Eldership could foster such a divine 
unison of the body of Christ as to heal the city of 
its ills, and make the Kingdom of God more than 
a haphazard, random movement, aye! make it a 
concerted, progressive revelation until each city 
becomes a New Jerusalem. 

Another step toward unison will be the National 
Federation of Churches, a National Bishopric of 
delegated representatives of all communions of the 
Body of Christ, such delegated representatives 
being vested with power to act upon matters of 
common concern to all. As Frank Mason North, 
President of the Church Federal Council, has aptly 
pointed out, "Federation arrived a good while 
ago in the realm of the State. There are signs 
that it is likely to remain. 'United States' desig- 
nates a government; it does more — it discloses and 
describes a fundamental principle of the social 



34 Reconstruction of the American Church 

and political order. That principle is the coor- 
dination of organized group units, that is, democ- 
racies, under representative control and by mutual 
agreement, the acceptance of a common pro- 
gramme and the working toward common objec- 
tives. The soundness of the principle was tested 
by honest men fifty years ago in a fierce conflict 
of arms, and a half century of extraordinary na- 
tional development, both in ideals and practice, 
has justified the verdict. Progress tends that way. 
Every new national agitation lifts tides of demo- 
cratic purpose higher. Educate Mexico, and 
Mexico will become the United States of Mexico. 
A half dozen republics of Central America are 
feeling, not for one another's throats, but for 
one another's hearts, under the lure of a possible 
United States of Central America." 

* The majestic sweep of this idea is now coming 
into the horizon of national Church affairs. A 
suggestion of such federation occured in Japan 
in 1 9 1 1 , a federation comprising twenty-four com- 
munions the purpose of which was declared to be 
"to secure a united action in the spread of the 
Gospel." A similar federation of the Churches 
of India grew out of a conference in Jubbulpore 



Christian Unison 35 

in April, 1909. Its interdenominational constitu- 
tion provides that "the federating churches agree 
to recognize each others' discipline and to wel- 
come members of other federating churches into 
Christian fellowship and communion." In China, 
Africa, Madagascar, Korea, such federations are 
duplicated. One of the finest fruits of this move- 
ment of unison and one of the clearest indications 
of the labour of the Holy Spirit is to be seen in 
the expedient of a division of territory in order 
to minimize the evils of denominationalism. The 
adjustment in the Philippine Islands affords one 
of the earliest examples of the plan. After the 
American occupation in 1898 the islands were 
thrown open to American evangelization. The 
missionary societies saw the danger of duplication 
and overlapping, the danger of quartering their 
strength by duplicating the number of organiza- 
tions. Many of the missionary boards conferred 
and distinct fields were assigned to Baptists, Con- 
gregationalists, Methodists, Disciples of Christ, 
Presbyterians. The same regimen was adopted in 
China after the Boxer rebellion, and in Mexico, 
and in South America after the Panama Con- 
ference. Such expedients are more than a truck- 



26 Reconstruction of the American Church 

ling peace; they are steps toward a larger goal. 
Such unison is not a tower of Babel erected to the 
skies to end in confusion. It is rather the co- 
operation of the wheels of a watch to go in differ- 
ent directions, yet fulfilling the function of giving 
time. 

That the time is now ripe in America for an 
enlargment of the ideals and powers and functions 
of the Federated Council of Churches, is a con- 
viction that daily grows with enormous expansion. 
What surpassing good could be accomplished by 
the entire body of Christ of America functioning 
with all its power and unity upon questions of war 
and peace, of child labour and social evils, of 
capital and labour, of intemperence and crime, of 
national betterment and spirit! It is high noon 
time for all communions to throw their technical- 
ities and false courtesies to the winds and leap to 
the need of the hour — the need of a national 
Bishopric of the Churches of Christ, empowered 
to act for the millions of followers of our Lord. 
Let such federation be not only in terms of senti- 
ment but of delegated power. The One Hundred 
and Thirtieth General Assembly of the Presbyter- 
ian Church, convened at Columbus, Ohio, in June, 



Christian Unison 37 

191 8, has issued one of the latest and freshest chal- 
lenges to the plea : 

"We recommend the following action: 

"That we, the commissioners to the One Hun- 
dred and Thirtieth General Assembly now in ses- 
sion at Columbus, Ohio, do declare and place on 
record our profound conviction that the time has 
come for organic Church union of the evangelical 
Churches of America. 

"That this Assembly hereby overtures the na- 
tional bodies of the evangelical communions of 
America to meet with our representatives for the 
purpose of formulating a plan of organic union. 

"That the Assembly's committee on cooperation 
and union be authorized and directed to designate 
the time and place, not later than January 1 , 1 9 1 9, 
for the above named convention; to prepare a 
suitable invitation; to fix the ratio of representa- 
tion and appoint the delegates of our body; to 
prepare a tentative plan of organic union for 
presentation, and to attend to all necessary ar- 
rangements. 

"That as a beginning the moderator and stated 
clerk be directed to wire the four national Church 
bodies now in session, asking them whether they 



38 Reconstruction of the American Church 

will appoint delegates to such a convention on 
organic union between the evangelical bodies, ex- 
plaining that we have voted in favor of it." 

Even at this moment the fruits of National 
Federation are being prepared by the planting of 
fertile seed. Conferences and surveys and pro- 
grammes are under way for a United Missionary 
appeal to the nation for hundreds of millions of 
dollars for the evangelization of the country and 
of the world. It seems too good to be believed. 
The precedent of Liberty Loans and War chests 
gives the united ChurcK faith to go on to the chal- 
lenge of its own claims in Christ. Little wonder 
that the Bishop of London quotes Mr. Myers 
glorious lines in "St. Paul" : 

Dreamer of dreams? We take the taunt with gladness, 
Knowing that God, beyond the years we see, 

Has wrought the dreams that count with you for madness 
Into the texture of the world to be. 

The world incredulously is still gazing at the 
achievements of the United War Work Campaign. 
That was Christian Unison with heart, mind, and 
will. Every humanitarian in America owed it to 
his own soul to understand the great movement 
and to have his share in it. It had the approval 



Christian Unison 39 

of President Wilson and the War Department and 
the enthusiasm of the American public. Seven 
War Relief Organizations were included in the 
appeal, and everyone was made to know their 
splendid services at home and abroad in mobiliz- 
ing the spiritual resources of our nation and in 
bringing effective victory to our cause. Of the 
$170,000,000 asked for, the Young Men's Chris- 
tian Association was to receive 58 per cent; 
the Young Woman's Association 8 per cent; the 
Knights of Columbus 17 per cent; the Jewish 
Welfare Board, the War Camp Community 
Service, the Library Association, and the Salva- 
tion Army about equal shares of the remainder. 
When it was proposed to use one pledge card to 
unify the appeal for these diverse causes, it did 
not imply or faintly suggest the surrender by any 
one of them of its distinctive character or au- 
tonomy. Each organization had its traditions, 
background, equipment, morale, principles, which, 
if properly prized and which, if preserved, would 
make for the strongest possible service. The 
men who headed that United War Work Cam- 
paign were level-headed and sure-footed men who 
had a vision of Christian Unison. 



40 Reconstruction of the American Church 

The United War Work Compaign then went to 
its task. When it had its funds it went with the 
soldier to the camps, accompanied him to the 
transport, met him at debarkation, shared with 
him the dangers of the front. President Wilson's 
remark is significant: "It is evident that the seven 
societies should unite their appeals in order that 
the spirit of American mercy may be expressed 
without distinction of race or religious opinion." 

The United War Work Campaign has made a 
road over which the Federated Council of 
Churches of Christ is about to travel again. Most 
of the great missionary societies of America are 
about to appeal in unison for a Mission Chest for 
the evangel of America and the world. An unac- 
customed honesty is come upon us; we are shed- 
ding our shams and sophisms and petty differences ! 
Our hearts are beating in Christian Unison, praise 
God! 

One further objective of unison lies before the 
Church of Christ, namely, an International Bish- 
opric of all Churches of Christ of the World 
to foster ideals of peace and humanity and to 
bring the kingdoms of this world into the King- 
dom of our Lord and Christ. Prophets are speak- 



Christian Unison 41 

ing to-day for a League of Nations to enforce the 
peace of the world. Why not also a League of 
all the Churches of Christ of the world to preach 
against militarism and materialism and national 
bitterness, and to usher in the reign of spiritual 
friendship and democracy? If the Christian con- 
science of the world be organized into unison, if 
the entire body of Christ throughout the world 
be focused into coodinated action, there is no 
great ideal it could not achieve. 

Suffice it now in time to be 

Shall one great Temple rise to Thee, 

Thy Church our broad humanity. 

White flowers of love its walls shall climb, 
Sweet bells of peace shall ring its chime, 
Its days shall all be holy time. 

The hymn, long sought, shall then be heard, 
The music of the world's accord, 
Confessing Christ, the inward word! 

That song shall swell from shore to shore, 
One faith, one love, one hope restore, 
The seamless garb that Jesus wore! 

The world war, with a Calvary passion and 
compassion, is vocal with agony and pain for the 



42 Reconstruction of the American Church 

consummation of this event. May God pour out 
His Spirit in these last days upon all flesh and 
give us the vision without which we perish. 

"O God of Peace, Thou art a witness to the 
division in Thy house which we have made by 
our constant quarrels, and we acknowledge our 
transgression. Give us the hope of the morning 
by a genuine desire for fellowship with Thy whole 
Church, for we are brothers, feeling our way 
towards Thee and towards each other. Only in 
Thy light can we find the way. Without Thy 
shield we are incompetent to render Thee service 
in the day of battle and danger. Thou hast 
created us in Thine image, redeemed us by Thy 
blood, made our bodies sanctuaries for Thy Holy 
Spirit, and we desire that oneness among our- 
selves for which Thou didst plan in the ages past, 
even as Thou didst plan for the gift of Thine only 
begotten Son. In the spirit of humility and faith 
we supplicate Thee for patience, courtesy and 
brotherliness. Then we shall love in spite of our 
failures and we shall reach the summit as our 
brothers of other communions climb to the heights. 
To Thee be all the praise through Jesus Christ 
our Lord. Amen." 



Christian Unison 43 

In Charles R. Kennedy's delightful drama, 
The Servant In The House, is a description of 
the Church Universal. The Bishop of Benares, 
from all accounts had had much experience in 
church building in India. "I am afraid," said 
Manson, "you will not think my Church an alto- 
gether substantial concern. You must see it in a 
peculiar light and some people never see it at 
all. It is no dead pile of stone and timber but 
a living temple. When you enter it you hear a 
sound as of ten thousand organs and the music of 
a great hymn chanted. If you have ears to hear 
you will understand it to be the beating of human 
hearts and the nameless music of men's souls. 
If you have eyes to see you will understand that 
the pillars of it are the bodies of men and the 
frescoes the flesh of women and children. And 
the faces of little babes laugh out from every cor- 
ner. It is yet building and being built upon. Some- 
times the work goes on in deep darkness, some- 
times in blinding light; sometimes beneath the 
burden of anguish, sometimes to the tune of great 
laughter. And sometimes — sometimes — in the 
silence of the night one may hear the tiny ham- 
merings of the comrades in the dome, the com- 



44 Reconstruction of the American Church 

rades who have gone before." Robert, the ob- 
ject of redemption, the drunkard, stands by en- 
tranced at Manson's description of the Church. 
"Is they any hands needed for the drains in that 
Church?" "Aye," said Manson, "drains are a 
very important element in that Church — at pres- 
ent." The war will have accomplished a sweet 
benediction to the Church of Christ of the world 
if it drain away its sectarianism and give it the 
divine spirit and proportions of the Church pro- 
jected and idealized by her Lord Christ. 

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Eng- 
land there were curious phenomena of the healing 
of a disease known as the "King's Evil." The 
touch of the hand of the sovereign was thought to 
have therapeutic power, especially in the cases of 
epilepsy and scrofula. So far as historians are 
able to trace the practice, its history began with 
Edward the Confessor in England and with St. 
Louis in France. Charles the Second is said to 
have touched ninety-two thousand people during 
his reign. Whenever the King was to travel 
through the realm the clergy were solemnly noti- 
fied and great numbers of the parish sufferers 
turned out for miracles of healing. The ceremony 



Christian Unison 45 

conducted with great pomp is described by Ma- 
caulay. When the King appeared the clergy in 
fresh canonicals stood round the canopy of state 
and read, "They shall lay their hands on the sick 
and they shall recover." Then His Majesty the 
King touched the ulcers and hung a gold coin 
about the patient's neck. Prayers and benediction 
followed and the procession moved on. The be- 
lief in the efficacy of the King's touch was prac- 
tically universal, and the historian Lecky says its 
genuineness was attested by the Church, the uni- 
versities, and the general consent of the people. 
The belief in this miracle of healing persisted 
through the English Revolution and down to the 
time of the French Revolution. Shakespeare has 
a fine passage in Macbeth on the Royal Touch — 

"Comes the King forth to-day, I pray you?" 
"Aye, sir! There are a crew of wretched souls 
That stay his cure — and at his touch, 
Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand, 
They presently amend!" 

"A most miraculous work in this good King 
Which often since my stay in England 
I have seen him do ! How he solicits Heaven 
Heaven itself best knows. But the people ulcerous, piti- 
ful to the eye, 
The mere despair of surgery, he cures." 



46 Reconstruction of the American Church 

This gift of the King's Touch was practiced by 
both Catholic and Protestant Kings and Queens. 
King James the First wanted to discard it as an 
outworn superstition, but his councellors urged him 
not to abate such a prerogative of the crown. 

All this is the story of the King's Touch of old. 
The world is weary and weeping in this hour for 
the healing touch of King Christ. When Christ 
walked in Palestine the multitudes brought unto 
Him their sick and He touched them and they 
were healed. But the Christ and His body and 
His King's Touch have not departed the world. 
Christ is reincarnated in His Church. "Ye are 
the body of Christ and members one of another." 
"And these shall be the signs that follow them that 
believe, they shall heal the sick, and if they touch 
any deadly thing it shall not harm them." The 
world now awaits the healing touch of the Body of 
Christ the Great Physician, to cure it of its war 
and materialism and sin. Is it possible that the 
curative powers of the Church of Christ to-day 
await an answer to the challenge — "Physician, heal 
thyself!" 



PART II 

CHRISTIAN UNIFORMITY 



"// there be any exhortation in Christ, any con- 
solation of love, any fellowship of the Spirit, any 
tender mercies and compassions, he of one accord, 
having the same mind. Do nothing through fac- 
tion or vainglory, hut in lowliness of mind let each 
count other better than himself. Have this mind 
in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, exist- 
ing in the form of God, counted not the being on 
an equality with God, a thing to be grasped, but 
emptied himself, taking the form of a servant" 
Paul, Philippians, 2:1-7. 

"The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a 
communion of the blood of Christ? The bread 
which we break, is it not a communion of the body 
of Christ? We who are many are one bread, one 
body; for we all partake of the One Bread." Paul, 
I Cor. 10:16-17. 



CHRISTIAN UNIFORMITY 

RALPH WALDO EMERSON, in one of his 
most charming essays, entered a plea for 
individualism and free diversity. "Nature," said 
Emerson, "abhors complaisances which threaten to 
melt the world into a lump, and hastens to break 
up such maudlin agglutinations. For nature 
wishes everything to remain itself; and, whilst 
every individual strives to grow and exclude, and 
to exclude and grow, to the extremities of the 
universe, and to impose the law of its being on 
every other creature, nature steadily aims to pro- 
tect each against every other. Each is self-de- 
fended. Nothing is more marked than the power 
by which individuals are guarded from individuals 
in a world where every benefactor becomes so 
easily a malefactor." 

Protestantism in many quarters to-day is anx- 
iously inquiring if this Emersonian individualism 
may be expected always to obtain. Or shall we 
begin to map out programmes of uniformity — uni- 

49 



50 Reconstruction of the American Church 

fortuity of creed, uniformity of ritual, uniformity 
of Church government? Or, on the other hand, 
would uniformity at best be only a wonderful 
"one-horse shay built in a logical way," destined 
again to break up or to break down into diver- 
sity? 

A survey of the field reveals many ambitious 
proposals to-day among the denominations of 
Christendom for a closer uniformity of Church 
government and life, but most of these ambitious 
proposals have the fault of Caesar's ambition, of 
"overvaulting" and ending in defeat. One might, 
to begin with, mention the Roman Catholic uni- 
formity suggested in the kindly and venerable let- 
ter of Bishop Bonomelli to the Edinburgh Mis- 
sionary Conference of 1910. "We Catholics can- 
not suffer to come into question what we have 
declared to be the truth. But you, my ever dear 
brothers, especially you English . . . come over 
the gulf to us. 'We will throw our arms about 
your neck. We shall all be sons of the same 
mother Church and the same Father who is in 
Heaven. " Here in Romanism we could find a 
uniformity of teaching, a uniformity of member- 
ship, a uniformity of ministry of the sacraments, 



Christian Uniformity 5 1 

which the whole Christian world enjoyed or other- 
wise for a thousand years. Our thanks are to 
Bishop Bonomelli ! 

Another proposal for Christian uniformity 
comes from the Episcopal brethren. The Lam- 
bert Conference of Episcopal Churches in 1888 
propounded to the world what by this time is 
known as the Episcopalian Quadrilateral. It 
placed uniformity upon four essential points. 
First, the Holy Scriptures, the Old and New 
Testaments, as the revealed Word of God. Sec- 
ond, the Nicene Creed as sufficient statement of 
Christian doctrine. Third, the two Sacraments, 
Baptism and the Lord's Supper, always to be ad- 
ministered with the words and elements used by 
Christ. Fourth, the historic Episcopate, locally 
adapted to the people called into uniformity with 
Christ's Body. This Quadrilateral was followed 
up in 1 9 10 by a prayer from the House of Bishops 
that all Christian communions throughout the 
world, which confess our Lord Christ as Saviour, 
unite in a fraternal conference on Christian faith 
and order. A good commentary on this proposal 
or Quadrilateral comes in the words of an Epis- 
copal Bishop of Saskatchewan: ''Reunion within 



52 Reconstruction of the American Church 

and between the churches is indeed a thing we may 
pray for. But we shall never get it so long as 
we exalt the scaffolding above the building, the 
shell above the kernel, the Church discipline above 
the inward and spiritual verities of the Gospel." 
It is of challenging and critical interest to note 
the amount of conscience burning at this move- 
ment for the rapproachment of the Protestant 
Episcopal and the Nonconformist Churches. It 
is a conscience that burns beyond the barriers of 
uniformity and passes into the field of pragmatic 
union. The war has given tremendous impulse 
to the movement. A committee made up of An- 
glican and Free Church leaders, Bishop Gore and 
J. H. Jewett and J. H. Shakespeare have already 
opened the preliminary engagements. Now like 
a trumpet blast comes the book of Rev. Mr. Shake- 
speare, The Church At The Crossroads. Scath- 
ing and caustic criticisms have been heaped upon 
Mr. Shakespeare's acceptance of Episcopacy. But 
the volume of discussion, talked and written, upon 
the overtures for uniformity betrays a burning 
conscience in the English people to have the con- 
fusion cleared up. 



Christian Uniformity 53 

"The question of reordination will inevitably 

arise," says Mr. Shakespeare. 

A way must be found at a later stage and in a calm 
and gentle atmosphere. It must be considered simply as 
involving regularity within the Church of England, and 
not validity. In the most emphatic language, every sug- 
gestion that Free Church ministers are to cast any doubt! 
or suspicion upon their own ordination to the ministry 
must be expressly excluded. On the other hand, there 
must be no readiness to press formal difficulties or to fail 
to see that if in the united Church the essential elements 
of Congregationalism and Presbyterianism are included, 
it is not unreasonable to crown the edifice with that prin- 
ciple of government which is so dear to the Episcopal 
Church. There are several ways in which a solution 
might be found, but if the reconciliation is to have its 
proper fruitfulness it is certain that there must be a 
striking historic act in which visible unity is achieved. 

The criticism upon Mr. Shakespeare's proposal 
is clearly set forth by Sir William Robertson 
Nicoll: 

For a Free Church minister to submit to reordination 
by a Bishop because the minister considers the act to be a 
harmless form, whereas the Bishop himself holds it to be 
a most solemn and vital necessity, must appear to plain 
men as shockingly insincere. 

Mr. Shakespeare would accept prelacy because the 
spirit of the age demands reunion. But if democracy 
means anything it means that authority is conferred by 
the people and not imposed upon the people. It has no 



54 Reconstruction of the A merits* Church 



--- _r . r ._ :..r_ v.;,: .7 ..>..:> AT.- 

^::>::~: ~_>: 15.5 -*::-.;■ :: : : z~--z l :z 

:-::_;- "r:~ ziz H S: : : rJl ■•:_;.-- 
salts to work out His holy witt. Wc are told that cM- 

::: ~ l: :r_> ~_5: .f-zrr. :: irrri :: :::.•; i~.i i~f vizir 
:: : . r. ; :: -::~ :: _: : ~ r? : -". ~:.:: z : f-5 irrerrr. r~.: 
involve? We look hum aid with eager hearts to a League 
of Nations and to a League of Churches; but what kind 
of a League? Brotherhood ImAwuji England and Amer- 
. : 2 2 :-rf z:~. rt : __ r t : ; 2 : _-::..: ;:.;i: «■ 1 ; _ 2 : r : : z. r 2 
:::_:.: :: 11:: it _ ~. zt: _:i:ri . ; ~.:_-2 i::rr: ~:~- 
:::_- :_:;. 1 :-;:tz :z :z ritz?: *:if — :z_i :e p> 
tesque and insulting. It would he lrsratrd as keenly as 
r rz*f _zzzzzzzfz :t:t _ t ": ~ r : r : 5 1_ 112: :;. : _* ziz2_5?fr5 
: to he reordained by 1 



7ze i:::z- z-:.:-s :: S.r V."..H.i.t. N.::_i i: 
.-.:: irpei: :: :e enrirel- rr:_r.__ess i: :r.e ^s :: 
z:t: ir.~_-; :::~ :..-.e :::::: irreiri-zr ::' :ze 
B.sirr :: l-:r.i:i .- K_-rs— 27 Hili L:r.i:r.. 
7:; ::.: ^7i.: 5. 52:: :: 27-72: 2: 2 VTesievir: 
r:-:7:72:t .5 2 :;:"::::.: ierirrzrc :::rr. prec- 
edent to be sure. But for Dr. Ingram to re- 
pudiate the policy of federation and to assure his 
iieirers ::.i: ihere nv_s: :e r.: -.izz.ztzlr.z ~':zz 
:z.t ::::; 2t5 e-risei '-. izt z. is::: : ireeis rives 
as his latitude and longtitade on the question at 
stake. The Bishop goes on: 



Christian Uniformity 55 

My suggestion is this, that after a certain date — we 
will call it, so as to show that we are not too dilatory, 
but it can not be by that date, January 1, 1920 — all or- 
dinations should be carried out in both churches as to 
satisfy the members of both churches. You see the point 
is this — to arrive at a point after which schism shall cease. 
If you can get, first of all, a date after which all ordina- 
tions will be considered valid by both bodies, however 
long it takes, you have arrived at a point at which eventu- 
ally, automatically, the division between the two bodies 
will cease. 

And almost contemporaneous with this comes 
on unofficial but valid sanction of overtures of 
marriage by Episcopalians and Congregationalists. 

We agree to acknowledge that the recognized position 
of the Episcopate in the greater part of Christendom as 
the normal nucleus of the Church's ministry and as the 
organ of the unity and continuity of the Church is such 
that the members of the Episcopal Churches ought not to 
be expected to abandon it in assenting to any basis of re- 
union. 

We also agree to acknowledge that Christian churches 
not accepting the Episcopal order have been used by the 
Holy Spirit in His work of enlightening the world, con- 
verting sinners and perfecting saints. They came into 
being through reactions from grave abuses in the Church 
at the time of their origin, and were led in response to 
fresh apprehensions of divine truth to give expression to 
certain necessary and permanent types of Christian ex- 
perience, aspiration and fellowship, and to secure rights 
of Christian people which had been neglected or denied. 
No Christian community is involved in the necessity of 



$6 Reconstruction of the American Church 

disowning its past; but it should bring its own distinctive 
contribution not only to the common life of the Church, 
but also to its methods of organization. Many customs 
and institutions which have been developed in separate 
communities may be preserved within the larger unity. 
What we desire to see is not grudging concession, but a 
willing acceptance of the treasures of each for the com- 
mon enrichment of the united Church. 



All this is struggle and suffering and writhing 
and wheedling and cajoling for a solution of the 
problem of Reconstruction through the avenue of 
Uniformity. The three most outstanding efforts 
for Uniformity to-day are to be found in the claims 
of the Catholic, Episcopalian, and Baptist or Dis- 
ciple of Christ communions. The latter com- 
munion or the latter two communions make their 
protest against a variegated Christendom on the 
basis of New Testament Church polity. The as- 
sumption of the claim is that Jesus Christ and His 
Apostles meant First Century polity and ordi- 
nances and creeds and observances to be binding 
upon all future generations. Christendom, be it 
soberly and solemnly said, has been busy for some 
years now testing whether the assumption of a 
Divine Uniformity is true or false. And when 
Christendom announces the results of its findings 



Christian Uniformity 57 

we need not be surprised to find Uniformity in 
the discard! 

Of such quantity and kind are these proposals 
for a uniformity of Church polity and Christian 
faith and order that one is led to wonder if the 
Church wants or needs uniformity, and if so, then 
how much? But far back of the question of uni- 
formity of Church life and antecedent to it is the 
question of the final authority in our Christian 
religion. Most Protestant communions have 
placed the final authority for faith and order in 
the Bible, preferring in some mystical way the 
authority of the New Testament over the Old 
Testament. The Catholic Brethren have allowed 
the Church the final authority, at least making 
room for new promptings of the Spirit as, "time 
makes ancient good uncouth." Most Protestant 
churches deny their own freedom, handicap them- 
selves with anachronisms, and by making a Book 
the final authority assume that the spirit of inspira- 
tion and leadership died when the Fathers fell 
asleep. The Roman Catholic theory, if not its 
practice, has graciously assumed that the same 
Spirit which inspired the Bible still works in the 
hearts of men, or at least in a few men, Cardinals 



58 Reconstruction of the American Church 

and Popes. Protestantism is, however, awaken- 
ing to the fact that it has relinquished a great 
deal in rejecting the Holy Spirit as the ultimate 
source of authority. Jesus declared it expedient 
for His disciples that He should go away, for 
if the visible Jesus did not depart the Holy Spirit 
would not come, but upon the advent of the Holy 
Spirit He would lead them into all truth. Why 
should Protestantism hold to some external au- 
thority in Church Government when a progressive 
revelation is given us by the living Christ? Why 
could not representatives of all Christendom meet 
to-day in a new Pentecost and have that Holy 
Spirit poured out upon them to "lead them unto 
all truth" concerning Christian reorganization of 
faith and order? Is it because we do not believe 
in the living God, or the indwelling Holy Spirit, 
or is it what Hutton calls the "spiritual fatigue of 
the world?" In our democratic government of 
America the Constitution and laws of the land 
are authoritative, but not the final authority. 
Rather is it the Supreme Court, which has power 
to interpret our Constitution or nullify our laws, 
which is final authority. And to place the Holy 
Spirit as the ultimate of authority in faith and 



Christian Uniformity 59 

order does not dethrone the authority of the Bible; 
it only enforces and interprets and modifies the 
authority of the Bible. When in the first Century 
the followers of Christ did not submit to the 
authority of a Book but to the authority of a 
Living Christ in His Holy Spirit, when the Dis- 
ciples in Jerusalem decided the Gentile question by 
the leadership not of a Book but of the Holy 
Spirit, why should Christ's Church to-day be held 
and bound by some canonical Church Order, and 
why should it not have that same gracious leading 
of that Holy Spirit? u Beyond the sacred page I 
seek Thee, Lord." 

The question is not content but must reach still 
further ! Did Jesus Christ and His Apostles set 
up a conception of religion that made man's rela- 
tion to God dependent on any particular rite or 
observance or form of organization ? Is any man 
justified in declaring any outward custom, sign, 
ritual, as the identification of the true Church? 
Is Heaven concerned so much about these matters? 
Take for instance some of the Baptist bodies who, 
as indicated in Mr. Rockefeller's recent article, 
are feeling how narrow-cornered and ill-grounded 
has been their isolation. The thoroughgoing fol- 



60 Reconstruction of the American Church 

lower of Christ must reject these mummified de- 
nominational differences and cling to the priest- 
hood of all believers, the unity of all branches 
of the Christian vine. The whole drift of things 
through this war will leave these claims of exclu- 
sion and enforced uniformity stranded high and 
dry. The new world after the war will have little 
energy to spare for ritualistic differences. Prin- 
cipal Ritchie has an admirable remark on the 
situation: "It makes men hesitate to affirm that 
the New Testament prescribes any form of 
Church government. Certainly Episcopacy can- 
not so affirm, its own scholarship being witness. 
There are very grave doubts about Presbyterian- 
ism also. Even Congregationalism can no longer 
be unhesitatingly dogmatic here. It can only af- 
firm that at the beginning New Testament 
Churches were autonomous spiritual societies. It 
is now seen that Church government is largely a 
divine expediency. Anglican scholars, like Light- 
foot, Hatch, Gwatkin, and Rashdall, have under- 
mined Anglo-Catholicism and left tottering to their 
fall dogmas like Apostolic Succession and the His- 
toric Episcopate. On the mission field the Spirit of 



Christian Uniformity 61 

God works mightily by what may be described as 
an Episcopal-Methodist-Congregationalism. The 
broad result is that the ancient saying, ( Ubi Chris- 
tus ibi Ecclesia' ('Where Christ is there is the 
Church') is seen again to be the fundamental doc- 
trine of the Church. All else is commentary, and 
even sectarianism cannot long live healthily on 
that. The fellowship of holy men, women, and 
children, and not any specific ecclesiasticism, is the 
divine Society on earth. That, says Paul, is 'the 
Body of Christ.' " 

A beautiful incident is related about the good 
Queen Elizabeth of Austria who, in the early nine- 
ties, used to go to Cape Martin in France for her 
vacation. She stopped at the immense hotel that 
stands on the promontory surrounded by pines and 
fields of arbutus. There she had her apartments 
in simple English style and there she would in- 
dulge her peculiar habits. She would arise early 
in the mornings for long walks and was famous 
for her generosity through the countryside. When 
the Empress first came to Cape Martin she in- 
quired solicitously for a Church, for she had a 
deep religious persuasion. She was told that 



6i Reconstruction of the American Church 

there was none in the immediate neighborhood. 
But Queen Elizabeth demanded that a chapel be 
improvised for her in the hotel and for that pur- 
pose she selected the billiard room. Then it was 
recalled that the laws of the Roman Catholic 
Church required that any room in which divine 
services were celebrated must first be consecrated 
by the archbishop of the diocese. It was found 
impossible to get the archbishop, and what was 
to be done? The difficulty was overcome in a 
curious and unexpected manner. It was recalled 
that an ancient law of the Church, one never 
rescinded, decreed that a member of the Order 
of Malta could render sacred any room in which 
he dropped his mantle. General von Berzer who 
was present was of the Order of Malta and he 
went through the form of dropping his mantle in 
the billiard room and it was accounted consecrated 
for a chapel. Thenceforth on every Sunday morn- 
ing the Queen's footmen would set up a portable 
altar before the chimney, and the mantle of the 
Order of Malta would be dropped, and that spot 
became the Church ! 

It is very fine and symbolic but its theology does 
not go far enough for to-day ! 



Christian Uniformity 63 

What is the Church? The Church is man 

When his awed soul goes out 

In reverence to the mysteries that swathe him all about; 

When any living man in awe gropes Godward in his 

search 
Then, in that hour, that living man becomes the living 

Church. 



When communions can learn to drop the man- 
tle of chanty then the Church of interdenomina- 
tional fellowship begins. 

Very frankly, the proposal of Church uniform- 
ity is futile. There should always be diversities 
of form and varieties of administration. Nothing 
said in this plea for unison should be construed as 
a desire for uniformity. Church unity, or unanim- 
ity, the unity of the vine as Jesus pictured it, or 
the unity of the body as Paul described it, is now 
an accomplished fact. Unity is an organic thing 
in a tree or in a Church. Church union and feder- 
ation are more and more forthcoming as a result 
of our unity. But union is a mental, psycho- 
logical, social creation. And then Church unison 
is an achievement like the blend and harmony of 
a musical orchestra; it is a spiritual achievement. 
But Church uniformity would be mechanical and 
frankly undesirable. Some additional Church uni- 



64 Reconstruction of the American Church 

formity is doubtless needed, and will work itself 
out in due season. But it cannot be emphasized 
too much that an interpretation of Church unity 
or union or unison in terms of Church uniformity 
will be a fatal approach to the problem. Insist- 
ence upon a set form for baptisms and com- 
munions, insistence upon one form of creed to the 
exclusion of others, insistence upon uniformity of 
doctrine, ritual, Church government, would prove 
fatally contrary to the whole freedom-loving spirit 
of the religion of Christ. For where the Lord 
is, there is liberty; "there is one Spirit and many 
manifestations." 

There's a wideness in God's mercy like the wideness of 

the sea, 
There is mercy in His justice which is more than liberty. 
For the love of God is broader than the measure of man's 

mind 
And the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind. 

To insist upon uniformity is to fall into the old 
error of setting bounds and habitations to the 
Spirit of God which Jesus says "Bloweth where it 
listeth. You know not the comings or goings 
thereof." Any denomination that limits the place 
where God's spirit may blow, that holds out for 



Christian Uniformity 6$ 

a uniformity of all others to its own individualism, 
is on bad ground. 

A few years ago the International Committee 
that was formed to celebrate the one hundred 
years of peace between Great Britain and America 
offered to the British Government as a permanent 
memorial of friendship and amity a statue of 
Abraham Lincoln. The offer was accepted by the 
British Government and a fine site was arranged 
for Lincoln near Westminister i\bbey on Parlia- 
ment Square. There the great emancipator will 
stand in bronze near the court of St. James. But 
this offer of peace turned out to be an apple of 
discord, and American was plunged into a storm 
of art controversy concerning the best statue of 
Lincoln. There is Borglum's statue of Lincoln, a 
sad presentation of the melancholy rail-splitter. 
There is Ball's statue of Lincoln in Boston, and 
St. Gauden's statue of Lincoln in Chicago. The 
art object that brought the most controvery was 
Barnard's statue of Lincoln in Cincinnati. Pro- 
tests were entered against some of these statues 
as defamatory to Lincoln. The art critics may 
disagree about the physical details of Lincoln but 
the world agrees upon Lincoln's spirit and person- 



66 Reconstruction of the American Church 

ality. So the details of the Church visible may 
precipitate differences of conviction that render 
uniformity in that realm impossible. But the 
Church finds its unity and union and unison in 
the reality and personality of One whom, having 
not seen, we love. 

A forced uniformity of creed or ritual is a fatal 
approach to the eager problem of Church Recon- 
struction. "There are diversities of gifts but the 
same spirit. And there are diversities of minis- 
tration but the same Lord. For as the body is 
one and hath many members, so also is Christ." 
No biologist asks for uniformity in the organic 
body. The eye and ear and hand and foot have 
an organic unity of function. But they do not 
possess uniformity. The instruments of an or- 
chestra, the piano, the violin, the brass horns, 
do not possess uniformity; they would make a bad 
band if they did. But they possess unison; or if 
they do not they are no orchestra. So also is 
the Church of Christ. The Methodists, and Pres- 
byterians, and Baptists, and Episcopalians, and 
all the other brethren, possess a sacred unity. God 
does not demand a tiresome uniformity. But the 
world-mission of Christ demands a blending of our 



Christian Uniformity 67 

denominational individualisms into union and 
unison. 

Kipling saw the possibility of the individual 
communion to attain its larger self in the social 
marriage of the Over soul, the union and unison 
of the Body of Christ: 

When earth's last picture is painted 

And the tubes are twisted and dried, 

And the oldest colours are faded 

And the youngest critic has died; 

We shall rest, and faith we shall need it, 

Lie down for an aeon or two 

Till the Master of all good workmen 

Shall set us to work anew. 

And only the Master shall praise us 
And only the Master shall blame, 
And none shall work for money 
And none shall work for fame. 
But each for the joy of the labour 
And each in his separate star 
Shall draw the thing as he sees it 
For the God of things as they are. 



PART III 

CHRISTIAN UNITY 



"Give diligence to keep the Unity of the Spirit 
in the bond of peace. There is one body and one 
Spirit, even as also ye were called in one hope of 
your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one 
God and Father of all who is over all, and through 
all, and in all. He gave some to be apostles, 
prophets, evangelists, unto the building up of the 
body of Christ, till we all attain unto the unity 
of the faith of the knowledge of the Son of God, 
unto a fullgrown man, unto the measure of the 
stature of the fulness of Christ." Paul, Ephesians, 

4:3-13' 

"I am the Good Shepherd — Other sheep I have 
which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, 
and they shall hear my voice; and they shall be- 
come one flock, one shepherd" Jesus, John 10: 
14-16. 



CHRISTIAN UNITY 

A FEW years before the outbreak of the 
European War an incisive article was pub- 
lished by Dr. Henry Van Dyke in "The Con- 
tinent," voicing the anguish of our divided Prot- 
estantism. The article deserves to be quoted at 
length. "What trials and delays must be en- 
dured, what obstacles and difficulties overcome, 
what long and perilous journeys accomplished, be- 
fore the United Church is reached, God only 
knows. It may be that the conflict with evil must 
grow sharper and more bitter before Christians 
learn that division means defeat. It may be that 
the shame of forsaken temples and a vanishing 
Sabbath . . . must grow deeper to make men 
see the consequence of rivalry. It may be that 
disaster and humiliation and weakness must be- 
fall the Christian forces, that they must be driven 
to some dreadful battlefield of Armageddon to 
make them stand together against the united 
powers of darkness and unbelief. Or it may be, 
71 



72 Reconstruction of the American Church 

and God grant it, that the lesson will be learned 
in brighter paths and slowly spelled out in syllables 
of hope." It is now painfully clear that the 
prophesied Armageddon was at hand and it forces 
the overwhelming conviction that the world must 
behold the oneness of the Christian power, the 
unity of our spirit in the bond of peace, if Christ 
is to prevail. 

Church Unison, Church Uniformity, Church 
Unity, Church Union, are phrases that body forth 
a problem and also a solution. Experimental psy- 
chologists declare it possible to unveil a picture 
inch by inch, each successive square inch being 
covered up as the next is unveiled, so that the eye 
beholds the entire picture, but the mind receives 
no generalized impression of the total effect. Some- 
what of this deceptive illusion seems to have 
dominated and prejudiced the popular mind in its 
effort to understand the unity and union of the 
Church of Christ. The problem of Church unity 
and union is philosophically to most denominations 
so much a problem of confusion and entanglement, 
and it is a problem upon which we have had so 
much more heat than light, that a volume or 



Christian Unity 73 

monograph attempting a clarifying philosophy of 
Christian unity, uniformity, union, and unison may 
not, in the economy of the day's literature, be 
distinctly out of place. If the problem were 
merely one of sentimental good will it were not 
so difficult. All can agree sentimentally with the 
Psalmist that it is "beautiful for brethren to dwell 
together in unity." But when it comes to the 
neglect or overthrow of age-long dogmas and 
traditions, when it comes to the incorporation of 
of the sentimental and theoretical desire for co- 
operation into pragmatic action, then the fun be- 
gins! "A strange world, my masters!" The 
clarifying and constructive programme seems re- 
luctant to come forth from its hiding place. The 
whole hazy and nubulous problem at present of a 
League of Nations or a League of Churches is 
tantalizingly like the psychology of awakening in 
the morning; we have a dim sense of thereness, but 
not as yet of this and that. 

A proper modesty should forbid the presump- 
tion of a complete and universal "whitherward" 
of Church Unity and reconstruction (to use an ex- 
pression of Carlyle). But it will be helpful to 



74 Reconstruction of the American Church 

realize a tentative pillar of cloud by day and 
pillar of fire by night leading us toward the prom- 
ised land. 

The confusion attendant upon this problem of 
Reconstructing the unity of the American Church 
introduces the necessity of a clean and clear<ut 
definition. Our words and phrases are such so- 
ciable creatures and so soon fall in love and lose 
their individuality in marriage that many of our 
problems become word problems, with issues false- 
ly stated. 

The purpose of definition-making should be to 
create a working-tool, not a Greek vase to ad- 
mire; this tool in its nature must be a clear con- 
cept. The physicist, by studying the impact of 

Mass X 



2 



two moving bodies, arrives at a concept 

Velocitv 2 

— . He looks about for a name and con- 



cludes that the symbol, "Energy," serves his pur- 

^1 r M X V 2 ^ 
pose. I hererore he says = rLnergy. 

The all-important matter to him is the concept, not 
the word. Back of every good definition must be 
a " working-tool concept," as William James calls 



Christian Unity 75 

it. This concept will have value in so far forth 
as it is able to step out of the laboratory and do 
work in concrete life. And in the definition of 
her problem of Reconstruction the Church must 
labour to get back of the symbols to a working- 
tool concept of unison, uniformity, unity, and 
union. 

The simple, straightforward statement of the 
problem, demands that the Church to-day publish 
the fact of her unity. Christian unity is now an 
achievement, an accomplishment, a possession of 
that great organization known as Christ's Body. 
The problem of individual sectarian effort and uni- 
fied progressive programme is not a matter of 
antithesis but of synthesis. The forest and the 
trees are one, indivisible and vital, back of all 
their various manifestations. To-day, as never be- 
fore in her history, the Church is under pressing 
and divine necessity to declare the fact and the 
nature of the existent social, intellectual, and spir- 
itual unity of the Body of Christ, and to estimate 
the forces making in society for and against it. 
Neither Protestantism nor Catholicism dare any 
longer neglect the moral conclusion that the 
Church Universal is One, possesses a unity of life 



76 Reconstruction of the American Church 

and effort and aim and fruitage and destiny in her 
Lord. 

"There is one body and one Spirit, even as we 
were called in one hope of our calling; one Lord, 
one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of 
all who is over all, and through all, and in all." 
What all members of the Body of Christ pathetic- 
ally need at this moment is a consciousness and an 
awareness of that organic unity. To the glorious 
realization and attainment of the consciousness of 
our unity the Spirit of God is now calling His 
children. A full realization of that vital unity 
may come through federation or union, yea, per- 
haps through even a further uniformity. Out 
of this union and uniformity of the multiple organ- 
izations shall pour a unison of evangelical effort 
that will fulfil the prayer of our Lord for the 
oneness of His Body. 

It is rapidly becoming the conviction of all 
Christendom that underneath its multiple divers- 
ities, the invisible body of Christ's Church now 
possesses a vital, organic Unity. There is one 
spirit and many manifestations. It is a unity per- 
haps that cometh not with observation. Eye hath 
not seen it, neither hath it entered as yet into the 



Christian Unity 77 

heart of our full self-consciousness. But in and 
through the visible diversities, the unseen body of 
Christ, the Church which needs no Temple, for 
the Lord God the Almighty is the Temple there- 
of, possesses the unity of Christ and the Father. 
As Christ and the Father were vitally One, in 
evangelistic outlook and desire for the world's re- 
demption, so we are both many and one. It is 
a conclusion that is irresistible. 

Among the beautiful legends that associate with 
the cities and towns and country places along the 
River Rhine is a story that floats about Diissel- 
dorf ; it is called "The Silence of the Critics." It 
is claimed that a great audience assembled one 
day in the Market place of Diisseldorf to view 
the unveiling of a great statue, an equestrian statue 
of John William the Elector. At the great mo- 
ment Gabriel the artist dropped the curtain and 
revealed the fine figure of John William on his 
charger. The audience breathed with admiration. 
The artist's heart swelled with pride when the 
Elector himself, John William, shook his hand 
publicly with approval. But some of the critics 
who stood about were jealous of the artist and 
took their revenge by depreciating the achieve- 



78 Reconstruction of the American Church 

ment. One found fault with the hoofs, another 
with the curve of the neck, another with the ears; 
in short, no part met with their approval. After 
listening to the critics, Gabriel turned to John Wil- 
liam and broke silence ; he asked permission to do 
the work over. The scaffolding went up again 
and the statue was screened from all prying eyes. 
The artist was secured from every interruption. 
For days the heavy clang of the artist's hammer 
were heard by the passer-by in the square. At 
last the audience was brought together again, and 
in the presence of John William and the critics 
the statue was again unveiled. John William 
turned inquiringly to the critics. He has taken 
our artistic suggestions, they said; the neck, the 
hoofs, all are perfect now. The artist turned to 
John William and said quietly, "Your majesty, 
to show you the worth of the critics let me say, 
the statue is unchanged. The hammering was 
to demolish the criticisms." 

It shall be so with all attempts to demolish the 
moral and spiritual unity of the Church. The 
unity of the Church never has been destroyed and 
never can be. It is identified with the Life of 
Christ in the souls of His people. Church uni- 



Christian Unity 79 

formity or church union have often enough been 
impaired, it is true; but of Church unity, the unity 
of the unseen Body of Christ, we may say with 
the sculptor, It is unchanged. Its continuity has 
been since the "days of His flesh." 

Our times of cautious and sober psychology are 
nervously impatient of definitions in terms of an- 
atomy and structure; we are hungry and thirsty 
for definitions in terms of function and purpose. 
Pushing aside our "left-over" ideas and our aged 
theological refinements it must be said that Jesus 
Christ and God were One in functional terms and 
in the pragmatic sense of their moral sympathy 
and their spiritual communion and their evan- 
gelical purpose. In what other sense they were 
One matters to finite minds little. In that moral, 
spiritual, functional, evangelistic, sense in which 
Jesus Christ and God were One, so Christ's Body, 
the Church is One. Jesus prayer was so framed: 
"As Thou, Father, art in Me and I in Thee, that 
they may be One." With the consciousness of 
this Unity, the aspiration of our prayer and pro- 
gramme is that through a closer Union and Uni- 
formity, God may lead His Church into a more 
and more sympathetic Unison. We possess Unity; 



80 Reconstruction of the American Tihurch 

to the end of realizing a harmonious Unison the 
denominations must be willing to sacrifice upon the 
altar of cooperative Union and if need be of Uni- 
formity ! 

Whether this creed of unity be an inverted 
Jacob's ladder projected by reason, or whether it 
be. originally let down from heaven, there is no 
doubt that the angels of progress are ascending 
and descending in response to our wrestlings. 
From Plato and John, to Royce and the social 
psychologists, philosophic Idealism has ventured a 
verification of Jesus' organic view, "I am the true 
vine and ye are the branches. My Father is the 
husbandman." Evangelical Churches have abided 
in Him and He in them; a blessed compulsion 
should constrain us to believe this Unity for the 
very work's sake, for apart from Him these 
movements could have done nothing. 

Many in one, our fathers said, 

Many in one, say we; 
Of differing creeds, of differing forms, 

Love brings us Unity. 

From each, from all, may life outflow, 

To each and all flow in; 
It needs us all to swell the chords 

Of Life's triumphant hymn. 



Christian Unity 81 

"I and my Heavenly Father are One," said 
Christ, and as Christ and the Father realized their 
unity in evangelistic outlook upon a suffering, sin- 
ful world, so the invisible body of Christ to-day 
is unified in its desire for the world's redemption. 
It is a craving which, in George Wharton Pepper's 
fine phrase, is the "concensus of Christendom." 

However, it is fair in dealing with the problem 
to estimate the force of the accumulated spirit 
of divisiveness that broods over our modern Chris- 
tianity. Of one thing we may be sure, the prob- 
lem of Church Unity is not one merely of tem- 
perament, nor of willful opposition to the desires 
of Christ, nor is it one purely of ecclesiastical 
organization. It has its psychological roots deep 
in the accumulated principles of our past individu- 
alism. Its cure can only lie in an extention of 
the social and religious consciousness of our basic 
solidarity. Eucken has admirably estimated the 
basis of division in his "Christianity and the New 
Idealism." His endeavor in "The Churches and 
their Divisions," is not so much to weight the 
diverse methods of labour of the various Churches 
as to ask, "how the Churches conceive the relation 
between the old traditional religion and the re- 



82 Reconstruction of the American Chutch 

quirements of modern life, and whether their ways 
of handling the problem give promise of a satis- 
factory solution." The outstanding feature is, of 
course, the opposition of Catholicism and Protest- 
antism. Catholicism is a clash of the finality of 
Medievalism with modern culture; even Modern- 
ism within its borders has little chance to quicken 
it. "In Protestantism we must distinguish two 
separate types, the older and the newer; the for- 
mer expressing the convictions of the Reforma- 
tion time ; the latter resulting from the contact of 
modern culture with Christianity." 

"The old Protestantism," says Eucken, "held 
that our faith in Divine matters became firmer in 
proportion as it was more exclusively self-sup- 
porting. . . . And the integral status of religion 
is here less secure than with Catholicism. So long 
as religion remained as in ancient days, the un- 
questioned ruler of life, the movement of culture 
along side of it could not in any way prejudice 
its own development. But the more rich and in- 
fluential the culture grew, and the more it became 
man's chief concern, the more did religion threaten 
to degenerate into mere provincialism, and to 
rank, in last resort, as a thing of no consequence. 



Christian Unity 83 

Many of its defenders, in their endeavor to se- 
cure it against all the doubt and confusion which 
perplex it to-day, are falling back on an historical 
basis. . . . Historical criticism, however, has 
severely scrutinized the form in which the Scrip- 
tures have come down to us and has shaken its 
authority. . . . We have to determine afresh 
for ourselves the true meaning of history, and 
we can do this only from the standpoint of life 
as a whole. ' r 

The Newer Protestantism is a frank effort at 
adaptation to the demands of Science and Culture. 
"In truth," continues Eucken, "the religious prob- 
lem has now passed far beyond the control of any 
ecclesiastical or sectarian body; over and outside 
the existing churches, and through them and be- 
yond, it has become a concern of the whole human 
race. ... In particular, it should be clearly 
understood that when we speak of the age's aspir- 
ation after a revived religion, we do not mean 
by this a simple return to the ancient forms of 
Christian faith, nor have we in mind any mitigated 
orthodoxy, any so-called liberalized interpreta- 
tion of these ancient forms. What the age must 
win for itself is an essentially new form of Chris- 



84 Reconstruction of the American Church 

tianity answering to that phase of the Spiritual 
life to which the world's historical development 
has led us! } 

And now the problem, at least for our genera- 
tion, assumes this form : How, underneath these 
essential diversities, may we find a basis inclusive 
of all! A common denominator for the various 
numerators must be secured in a realization of the 
supremacy of love over knowledge, of evangelism 
over method and of cooperation over self-preach- 
ment. Both Progressive and Conservative par- 
ties to the controversy must realize that "Whether 
there be prophecies" of Unity, or "whether there 
be knowledge," all but the abiding things, "faith, 
hope, charity," shall be done away. Where shall 
we find the tramping-ground, the "basis inclusive 
of all," the rock foundation deep and abiding 
enough to support the entire superstructure of 
Christendom? Perhaps we shall find our first 
refuge from the cold in the 13th of Corinthians. 

More and more the present-day Gospel finds its 
announcement in terms of social love. "If thy 
heart be as my heart, give me thy hand." Le- 
galism is the warp upon which the sects weave 
with woof of bias a coat that no arrows of love 



Christian Unity 85 

or expediency can pierce. Legalism of Scriptural 
interpretation has been especially pregnant with 
discord. But beneath these numerators of our in- 
dividual differences of Methodist, Baptist, Pres- 
byterian, Episcopalian, or what-not, we find the 
greatest common denominator, the love of Christ, 
a love that beareth all things, believeth all things, 
hopeth all things, endureth all things. An English 
epigrammatist has reflected that "religion has had 
to provide that longest and strongest telescope, the 
telescope through which we could see the star upon 
which we dwelt." To discern the essential nature 
of our own unity the Churches must resort to that 
religious telescope with the well-focused lens of 
love, the 13th of Corinthians. 

The night has a thousand eyes, 

The day but one; 
Yet the light of a bright world dies 

With the dying sun. 

The mind has a thousand eyes, 

The heart but one; 
Yet the light of a whole life dies 

When love is done, when love is done. 

A recent criticism from Chesterton upon 
Thomas Carlyle is pregnant to suggest the possible 



86 Reconstruction of the American Church 

solidarity of Christ's Church: "A man is almost 
always wrong when he sets out to prove the un- 
reality and uselessness of anything; he is almost 
always right when he sets out to prove the reality 
and value of anything. I have a different and 
much more genuine right to say that bull's eyes are 
nice than to say that licorice is nasty; I have found 
the meaning of the first and not the second. If a 
man goes on a tearing hunt after shams it is 
probable that he will find nothing real. He is 
tearing off the branches to find the tree." An 
unyielding and unlovely spirit will be a subsidy of 
heresy against all arguments for a consciousness 
of unity. Without love truth cannot hold com- 
munion in our midst ; with love the Churches shall 
have the power of cohesion in the differences com- 
mon to our human lot. 

Again evangelical churches are to-day announc- 
ing the gospel of incorporation of a Life, rather 
than assent to creed, ascription to ritual, or mem- 
bership in a visible organization. Past preach- 
ments may have created differences of creed as to 
miracles and prophesies ; we have come to see that 
we should have "told them to no man." Pulpits 
have articulated dogmas of atonement, divinity 



Christian Unity 87 

and inspiration; the larger truth declares that 
faith, hope, and charity are the things that abide. 
Though we give our bodies to be burned for the 
dogmas and have not charity it shall profit us 
nothing. Disputes have been engendered as to 
ordinances and their manner of observance, of 
membership in some form of organization of the 
visible Church. "The Kingdom of God is not 
such meat and drink" ; it is within us, righteous- 
ness, joy, and peace in the Holy Ghost. Sects 
that exist by the sword of dogmatic controversy 
shall perish thereby, for Christianity constrains 
us with a blessed compulsion to fellowship in a 
life. Only in so far forth as ritual and creed 
pragmatically minister to this fellowship, to lead 
the soul to Christ, are they valuable. The con- 
science of all Christendom is flaming and articulat- 
ing itself with irresistible persuasion on this point 
to-day. And it shall not know defeat. 

The matter of evangelism, of missions, the 
mighty task of the Church for which our Lord 
died, here is a platform upon which all can stand. 
Is there any other basis of unity needed than these 
three : the Love of God in Christ overflowing into 
all souls, the Incorporation of Jesus Christ's char- 



88 Reconstruction of the American Church 

acter into our conduct (which Arnold called three- 
fourths of life), the Missionary Evangelism of 
Christ upon the World ! Surely if any man build 
on any other foundation than the simplicity and all- 
sufficiency of Christ, the "day" shall declare it. 

The hopeful world has recently become so filled 
with admiration for the strategical genius of Gen- 
eral Foch and his Staff that it feels an obligation 
devolving upon them to explain the military tac- 
tics by which the Allies won at Armageddon. The 
world is not satisfied with the theories of tyros 
and neophites who talk from self-derived knowl- 
edge ; it wants a final word from those who have 
learned at the expense of shell-torn experience. 
Among all the sinuosities of the military struggle 
in the World Armageddon, no chapter can com- 
mand more interest than one on ''Positional War- 
fare." After the long ribbon of trenches had 
unfolded from Switzerland to the North Sea in 
1 9 14 the contest became one for "positions." 
Certain spots, as Verdun or Vimy Ridge, were 
strategic and were called "centres of resistance." 
If several centres of resistance fell to the enemy 
it might mean the necessary retirement of the 
entire line. It was at this gigantic game of mil- 



Christian Unity 89 

itary chess, this war of positions, that Foch finally 
won for Democracy. 

The Church of Christ during the Great War 
has also realized something of the "war for posi- 
tions." It has encountered many centres of re- 
sistance, gone over the top gloriously for Christ, 
and on looking into the mirror now finds itself 
with new aspect and new attitude. A modern 
poet recently characterised France as the greatest 
theological class-room in the world. The men 
at the front were face to face with Reality and 
the Church had to supply a Christ as vivid and real 
as wounds and suffering and death. Christ was 
found the only rallying-point in an otherwise dis- 
integrating world. The exigencies of the battle- 
front minimized or blotted out all sectarian dif- 
ferences. Mr. Tiplady's The Cross at the Front, 
full of idealism and reality, speaking poignant ex- 
perience in bold language, does not hesitate to 
point out the blunders and sins of the Church in 
these faith-shaking times. But above the din 
of battle his message sounds clear and bell-like that 
Christ lives, that Christ is real, that Christ tri- 
umphs. The spirit of Christ's great adventure 
banished from the battle front the severities and 



90 Reconstruction of the American Church 

angularities of the divided Church and Christ was 
All in All. 

An ancient Swiss legend of rare charm and 
beauty clusters about the wonderful Lake of 
Geneva. It is related that a simple and rustic 
peasant who lived in the valley of Berne not far 
from Lake Geneva, once decided that he wanted 
to see some of the world, and after for a long 
while laying his plans, he bade his friends and 
relatives an impressive farewell and set out. 
Armed only with his mountain staff he climbed 
the rough path leading to one of the lofty peaks 
that look over Lake Geneva. Tramping sturdily 
on, he soon came to the boundary line that sep- 
arated his own Canton from that of Vaud. Never 
before had this simple peasant ventured so far 
from home and everything seemed so strange that 
he kept looking around and behind and before 
him, bewildered and marvelling at the view which 
grew more and more extended with every step. 
It was one of those amazing bright Swiss days 
when in the thin atmosphere every object is per- 
ceptible for miles around. There was much to 
see and, as the poor peasant had never traveled 



Christian Unity 91 

before, he was quite unprepared for the sight 
which greeted his eyes when he reached the top 
of the mountain pass. There in the glorious 
morning sunlight the peasant stood with open-eyed 
wonderment and gazed at Lake Geneva and, be- 
yond, France and the Alps of Italy. And as for 
Lake Geneva itself, its waters were of the exact 
hue of the sky overhead. After staring at the 
entrancing view for some time, the sturdy rustic 
heaved a great sigh, turned slowly on his hobnailed 
heels and wended his way slowly back home again 
along the very path which he had just trod. When 
he reached his native village the people all crowded 
around him asking why he had come back so soon 
and what had induced him to give up his long- 
cherished plan to see the world on the other side 
of the mountain. The peasant, whose intellect 
was dull with long toil, listened stolidly to their 
questions, scratched his curly head and slowly ex- 
plained that on reaching the top of the pass he 
had discovered it would be useless and unsafe to 
venture further — for a big piece of the sky had 
dropped down into the valley on the other side of 
the mountain! 



92 Reconstruction of the American Church 

Has it been necessary for the Church to go on 
a long journey, over rough roads of militarism to 
find brotherhood in Christ on a foreign soil? At 
the World's Armageddon a great piece of the 
sky dropped down, Heaven poured out its pente- 
cost of spiritual waters to shake the thirst of 
those who battled at the crisis of the Universe. 
The army will return with its wonderful tidings 
of Unity. On the other side of the mountain they 
saw a huge piece of the Heavens drop into the 
valley below; it was the realization that in Life 
and in Death Jesus Christ makes us One! 

"O God of Peace, Who through Thy Son, Jesus 
Christ, didst send forth One Faith for the salva- 
tion of mankind; send Thy grace and heavenly 
blessing upon all Christian people who are striving 
to draw nearer to Thee, and to each other, in the 
Unity of the Spirit and in the bond of peace. Give 
us penitence for our divisions, wisdom to know 
Thy truth, courage to do Thy will, love which 
shall break down the barriers of pride and preju- 
dice, and unswerving loyalty to Thy Holy Name. 
Suffer us not to shrink from any endeavor, which 
is in accordance with Thy will, for the peace and 
unity of Thy Church. Give us boldness to seek 



Christian Unity 93 

only Thy glory and the advancement of Thy King- 
dom. Unite us all in Thee as Thou, O Father, 
with Thy Son and Holy Spirit, art One God, world 
without end. Amen." 



PART IV 

CHRISTIAN UNION 



"Speaking truth in love, grow up in all things 
into Him who is the head, even Christ, from 
whom all the body, fitly framed and knit together 
through that which every joint supplieth, accord- 
ing to the working in due measure of each several 
part, maketh the increase of the body unto the 
building up of itself in love." Paul, Ephesians, 
4:15-16. 

"Put on therefore as God's elect, holy and be- 
loved, a heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness, 
meekness, forbearing one another and forgiving 
one another even as Christ forgave you. And 
above all things put on love which is the bond 
of perfectness. And let the peace of Christ rule 
in your hearts to which ye were called in one 
body. )y Paul, Colossians, 3:12-15. 



CHRISTIAN UNION 

IT is doubtless obvious to anyone who follows 
the progress of the war that the Church may 
do well to learn some vital lessons from the dis- 
asters and successes of military science. As Paul 
reverted to military science for his analogies on 
"the Captain of our salvation," and "put on the 
full armour of God," so the Churches must to-day 
conserve the lessons taught by the master military 
brains of the world. One of the mightiest of all 
these hard-taught lessons is the power of union of 
organization over isolated and divided effort. 
Writing to Robespierre in 1794 Napoleon set 
forth the conception of modern warfare when he 
said, "The management of war requires concen- 
tration of fire on a single point. Attacks must 
never be scattered but concentrated and with unity 
of command do one thing and do it hard." 
Through his great wars Napoleon fought over- 
whelming odds in coalitions and alliances and with 
world-smashing union of organization he worsted 
97 



98 Reconstruction of the American Church 

and walloped numerically superior enemies. At 
Austerlitz Napoleon gave superior forces the 
wormwood and gall of defeat and as late as his 
Marne campaign of 18 14 with an army reduced to 
a handful he triumphed over vast numbers through 
his unmatched union of organization. It was not 
until 1 8 15 at Waterloo that Wellington and 
Blutcher learned to act together with coherence, 
and when they did Napoleon was undone. Turn- 
ing to our own Civil War, one sees instantly that 
until Grant was made commander-in-chief, the 
Northern efforts were merely a series of discon- 
nected campaigns. The North had superior num- 
bers, but Lee with perfectly united organization 
transferred troops rapidly from Tennesee to Vir- 
ginia and back again. It was only after the battle 
of Chattanooga that the war on the Northern side 
progressed as a cohesive, centralized effort; and 
once that union of effort in the North came, the 
collapse of the South was inevitable. Now it has 
been known for some years past that Germany was 
a close student of this Napoleon-Grant science of 
warfare. It must be confessed by the Allies that 
in the early days of the war Germany, Austria, 
Turkey, Bulgaria, found a concerted action that 



Christian Union 99 

worked deadly consequences to the haphazard co- 
operation of the Allies. The Allies with greater 
devotion and resources have not sooner won the 
victory because we gave a series of side-shows. 
But once the Allies learned that lesson of union, 
once they pooled their drives and subordinated all 
to a united programme, victory came. And under 
this concert of action the clock of victory for the 
Allies was moved ahead with amazing rapidity. 
Foch repeated Napoleon and Grant. 

Jesus and Paul with a spiritual-military genius 
realized from the first the tremendous value of 
perfect union in the Church of believers. "How 
beautiful it is," said the Psalmist, "for brethren 
to dwell together in unity." If the Psalmist 
found it beautiful then Jesus and Paul found it 
abtolutely essential if the company of the redeemed 
was to make any impression upon the world. Jesus 
knew that a house divided against itself cannot 
stand. After the departure of the visible Jesus, 
the spirit of Christ in Paul pleaded and took up 
cudgels for the mighty cause of Union. Paul la- 
mented to the Corinthians that there were divi- 
sions among them. Paul's beautiful argument in 
the 1 2th. of I Corinthians is matchless in its logic 



ioo Reconstruction of the American Church 

and irresistible in the aptness of its appeal. The 
Church is presented as a body. As Professor 
Hocking says, "The sum is greater than all its 
parts and the body is greater than all its members 
in the science of biology." So the Church, pleads 
Paul, is body of Christ, and Christ is greater than 
all. And in the 4th. of Ephesians Paul's plea for 
union of function in the body is the same sweet 
logic; "that ye may grow up in all things to Christ, 
from whom all the body fitly framed together 
through that which every joint supplieth, according 
to the working in due measure of each several part, 
maketh the increase of the body unto the building 
up of itself in love." This body of Christ, the 
Church, is yet immature and must grow in wisdom, 
stature, and favor with God and man, "till we all 
attain unto the unity of faith, and the knowledge 
of the Son of God, unto a full-grown man, unto 
the measure of the stature of the fullness of 
Christ." "No law can be made," says Hobbes in 
his Leviathan, "until they have agreed upon the 
Person that shall make it." Paul applies this rule 
rigidly to the Church. Our lawgiver for union is 
Love and Love as personalized by Christ. The 
least that Paul can possibly mean by the 12th. of 



Christian Union 101 

I Corinthians and the 4th. of Ephesians, is that 
love of Christ will unionize and federate and 
harmonize all the diverse objects and aims of 
Christ's Church. 

The effort and object of the Church of Christ in 
all the stages of its history has been to attain and 
to maintain the union of forces which Jesus prayed 
for and left with His Disciples. "I am the Good 
Shepherd," said our Lord, "and I know my sheep. 
Other sheep have I which are not of this fold; 
them also I must bring. And they shall hear my 
voice and there shall be one flock and one Shep- 
herd." The Christians of the Apostolic Age and 
of the period immediately succeeding enjoyed per- 
fect union of spiritual effort in the bond of peace ; 
with them there was one Lord Christ, one Faith 
in His redemptive power, one Baptism of His 
Holy Spirit. True, there were differences among 
the Apostolic Churches and Churchmen that elic- 
ited the reprimands of the Apostle Paul, but these 
differences never assumed such serious dimensions 
as to develop into organic separations. The cruel 
conditions of that early Roman world drove the 
followers of Jesus into union as a band of robbers 
drives pilgrims into common defense. The dis- 



102 Reconstruction of the American Church 

ciples were few in numbers, poor in worldly goods, 
ostracized by the world, persecuted unrelentingly, 
and pressed into union by hard, iron necessity. 

It is always stimulating to look back to that 
First Christian Century when Christ began to 
streak the darkness with light. The Romans with 
their lust for world empire held sway from the 
Euphrates to the Atlantic, from the Danube to the 
African Deserts. Everywhere morality was un- 
supported and fortune tellers posed as the best in- 
terpreters of life. There was a general decay of 
faith and a paralysis of hope, a deep sorrow with- 
out consolation, a great hush or pause or coma. 
Into that great hush came a new order of phe- 
nomena, a disturbance in the moral world. By the 
end of the Apostolic era the gospel of Christ had 
found root in nearly all the great cities and cen- 
tres of population. The magnificent Roman roads 
helped to radiate the message throughout the Em- 
pire. By the conclusion of the First Century 
Christianity had skirted all the shores of the Medi- 
terranean; it had gone up the Nile into Egypt; it 
had crossed the Euphrates into the Parthian Em- 
pire ; it had entered Gaul and planted churches in 
Lyons and Vienna. Often these churches were 



Christian Union 103 

sundered by hundred of miles and diverse lan- 
guages and cultures, but they were united in the 
bond of perfect brotherhood in Christ. Through 
the darkness of that First Century these little 
churches dotted paganism like spangles of gold 
and silver. It was very much as geologists say 
Europe rose from the deep, at first little islands 
in the wilderness of waters, then the islands grew 
toward each other into a vast continent of unity. 
So these little churches enlarged their circles of 
power giving Christ and immortality to the dark 
world. 

Next to the spiritual and moral transcendence 
of their message and life, the most wonderful 
explanation of the power of that early Church lay 
in its union of effort. Where you have two agree- 
ing as touching a matter it is accomplished ! They 
knew not our Twentieth Century divisions ! 

But it is now common historical knowledge that 
several centuries after the departure of the Apos- 
tles the primitive Church of the Disciples lost its 
simplicity and became identified with the Roman 
Empire. Through the ascendancy of men of 
power in the Bishopric of Rome the Church en- 
tered upon an era of enforced uniformity so rigid 



104 Reconstruction of the American Church 

in type and so authoritively maintained that it 
was type and prototype of the uniformity of the 
Empire of Rome itself. In place of little groups 
of disciples worshiping in one another's homes as 
in the Apostolic days the Church now became a 
religious absolutism of utmost power and pomp. 
And then for seven hundred years the orthodox 
Catholic Church professed a union centering in 
an historically derived priesthood and ministry and 
exhibiting a perfect agreement in the use of the 
sacraments. 

On the 1 6th. of July, 1054, division and schism 
began. The year 1054 marks the separation of 
the Eastern and Western Churches into Greek 
Catholic and Roman Catholic. Because of a re- 
puted theological difference the Pope published in 
the Cathedral of St. Sophia in Constantinople a 
writ of excommunication and the "after the de- 
luge" was on. The next great organic disunion 
or disunions that took place were those of the 
1 6th. Century and following. Abuses of both 
morals and ecclesiastic powers had crept into the 
Roman Catholic Church and the Reformation 
under Luther and Calvin and Huss broke the 
union of Western Christendom, such union as it 



Christian Union 105 

was. The new-found Protesting liberty began to 
manifest itself in many ways, some good and 
others far from ideal. And yet despite the break- 
age charges these reformers levied against Chris- 
tendom, despite the resultant confusion to Prot- 
testantism since, surely the divisions of Christen- 
dom are preferable to the one-time enforced uni- 
formity of the Roman Catholic order. It is not 
difficult to prove this. 

But while a tolerant God winked at men's ig- 
norant divisions in time past, it is now high time 
for the Church to emerge from the age of con- 
troversy. "The night is far spent and the day 
is at hand." Under the shadow of the Cross 
Jesus prayed for the oneness of His believers, and 
to-day upon the world war the Christ has been 
crucified afresh and put to an open shame. The 
deep consciousness rests upon the Church to-day 
that however she may have fulfilled the desire of 
her Lord in other respects, she has not fulfilled His 
agonizing prayer for union. Look into the re- 
ports of the U. S. Census Bureau at the unenvi- 
able record of the more than one hundred and sixty 
denominations in our land ! Many of the smaller 
denominations are so small and claim such idio- 



106 Reconstruction of the American Church 

syncracies that they are "sects become insects." 
As Bishop Anderson has it, "Our many church 
labels are proving libels against Christianity and 
many religions are not increasing religion." Some 
of the larger denominations are divided beyond 
all justification! We find twelve kinds of Pres- 
byterians, fifteen kinds of Baptists, sixteen kinds 
of Methodists, twenty-one kinds of Lutherans. 
"The climax of denominationalism is reached by 
one sect further subdivided by perferances for 
hooks and eyes instead of buttons in the attach- 
ment of clothing. They proudly hope to meet in 
Heaven though they will not unite on earth." To 
attribute such divisions to providential guidance 
is to approach perilously close to blasphemy. 

An investigation of districts in East or West 
discloses the depressing facts of over-churching. 
Towns of three hundred in population may dis- 
play five or six different churches with no resident 
preacher for any one of them. Classical illustra- 
tions from the length and breadth of our land 
could be cited to show the sinful wastefulness of 
our modern Church politics. If such Churches 
could find grace enough to unite they might form 
a congregation of sufficient strength to command 



Christian Union 107 

the regard of the town or city they seek to bless. 
In almost every college of our land the Senior 
Class has an event called "burying the hatchet." 
On some dark night toward the end of the college 
year the class war of four years' duration is laid 
aside and the graduating class solemnly buries a 
hatchet in the woods as a symbol of the end of 
all differences. The Church may yet learn. 

It is said by travelers that as one toils up 
Mount Hood in the Cascade Range, he crosses in 
the gray dawn of the morning a small river valley. 
The traveler is able to accomplish the passage dry- 
foot. But returning at eventide he finds the dry 
river bed filled with a rushing torrent of water. 
What has effected the change? All during the day 
the sun with its warm rays has softened the snows 
and sent floods of water gushing and rushing down 
the mountain side. In such manner it is impera- 
tive that the warm Sun of Righeousness that arises 
with healing in His wings must melt up our cold 
sectarianisms and send warm streams of love to 
service in the plains below. It would be a river 
that would make glad the City of God. 

Now at last there is emerging a deepening sense 
of the sinful waste of overchurching and competi- 



108 Reconstruction of the American Church 

tion with consequent neglect of needy fields. Such 
men as Chief Justice Brewer aver that "Denomina- 
tions exist, will exist, ought to exist. Their exist- 
ence is in no manner inconsistent with the spirit of 
unity which should animate all." Arley B. Shaw 
declares that "a wholesome competition developes 
charity and efficiency." While these assertions are 
true, it needs no critical eye to perceive that there 
have been many vicious forms of competition. A 
practical missionary writes, "If the Churches could 
hear the truth and nothing but the truth about 
home missions, such a demand for union would 
come from all quarters as would amount to a revo- 
lution. . . . When the youngest of our Western 
States are more heavily overchurched than New 
England, we may be sure that the indulgence of 
our denomintional differences is the most exagger- 
ated and shameful of our modern luxuries." But 
the sense of our deeper unity is growing — thank 
God! — through his maelstrom of the present 
world-shaking conflict. 

Mr. Chesterton in "Heretics" has admirable 
insight into the situation. "The modern world," 
he says, "is not evil; in some ways the modern 
world is far too good. It is full of wild and 



Christian Union 109 

wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shat- 
tered, it is not merely the vices that are let loose. 
The vices are indeed let loose and they wander 
and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also 
and the virtues wander more wildly." We need 
an organization of this wandering and uncoordi- 
nated good-will. In the primative Church it was 
their coordination that gave them strength; they 
were a state within a state. 

For the strength of the pack is the wolf, 
And the strength of the wolf is the pack. 

The world is critical of our dislocated Chris- 
tianity. "It sees fences where there should be 
an open field, hedges where there should be noth- 
ing but green grass, sentries walking to and fro 
on lines that ought never to have been drawn." 
We need concerted action over-reaching these 
boundaries. If we investigate the life of the later 
Roman Empire, we can find the same condition 
of disorganized good-will. Multimillionaires gave 
parks and theatres and aqueducts and received 
their monuments as to-day. But it is not by senti- 
mental but by organized philanthrophy that the 
world is to be lifted to Christ. 



no Reconstruction of the American Church 

Rev. Mr. Huntington ventures that if our Chris- 
tianity costs us twenty times as much — "and it 
would do so were we in dead earnest" — we should 
be only the better men and women for the outlay. 
However that may be, a sowing of seed that is 
often a "scattering abroad" and brings only two- 
or five-fold instead of some sixty, or an hun- 
dred, is morally depressing. The passion of the 
Churches, the passion of Christ Himself, cries for 
a deeper consciousness of our unity of love and 
of hope and of faith. Its fulfilment will come as 
surely as Christ's prayer for unity was not in 
vain. The burden of our Lord's prayer to God 
shall not be too heavy for us to carry. 

The great diversification of interests and special- 
ization of industry in the past century have created 
an individualism that has not yet realized its 
part and parcel in the larger social solidarity of 
our national and international life. The centrif- 
ugal aspects of our mental and social and Church 
relations have proved far stronger than the cen- 
tripetal ; and our souls have been torn greviously. 
C. P. Cranch, in his subtle poetry, "Gnosis," 
makes frank avowal of this atomic creed; his open 



Christian Union in 

statement of individualism and resignation to it is 
a wound in our social side : 

We are spirits clad in veils, 

Man by man was never seen; 
All our deep communing fails 

To remove the shadowy screen. 
Heart to heart was never known ; 

Mind with mind did never meet; 
We are columns left alone 

Of a temple once complete. 

Warner Fite, in his "Individualism" has tried 
to comfort our hearts with a small family oasis in 
the midst of this individualistic desert by present- 
ing individuality as a consistency with two aspects, 
"mechanical and conscious." His individualism 
does but permit a slight "interpenetration of 
selves." Alas! we lose our lives without socially 
regaining them! But the new sense of social 
solidarity, the "social gospel' at work like leaven 
in the economic and moral lump is bursting the 
containing fetters of this laissez-faire individual- 
ism and there is hope. 

Pope's great word, "For forms of government 
let fools contest, whatever is best administered is 
best," is now winning a tardy place in Christian 



H2 Reconstruction of the American Church 

counsels as well as in democratic commonwealths. 
Note how magnificently Christian Union is under 
way! Note first of all the progress of union in 
the interdenominational missionary effort! It is 
a significant fact that the foreign missionary plat- 
form is thus far the outstanding one upon which 
all evangelical bodies have been able to unite. 
Missionary workers must be devoutly thankful for 
this and solemnized by the responsibility it im- 
poses. As in the early Apostolic days the Church 
threatened to split over the Gentile question but 
was saved through the missionary spirit, so the 
Church to-day can work out its own salvation with 
fear and trembling through the God-given, out- 
ward-looking channel of missions. The future 
historian of the Church will surely attach great 
value to the year 1854 as the date of the first 
interdenominational conference of missionary so- 
cieties. It was held in New York in May of 1854. 
Another great conference met in London in Octo- 
ber of the same year. A third was held in Liver- 
pool in i860, and a fourth in 1878, with thirty- 
four communions blending their spirits and coun- 
sels for the work of the Kingdom. Again, in 
1888 the Centenary of Christian Missions chal- 



Christian Union 113 

lenged the attention of the world. Fifteen hun- 
dred missionary representatives were present from 
every quarter of the globe representing one hun- 
dred and forty missionary societies. So the idea 
of united evangelization of the world was fairly 
launched and in April, 1900, the memorable Ecu- 
menical Missionary Conference convened in New 
York City. Almost every religious communion 
of the globe was represented. Ex-President Har- 
rison who presided at the sessions declared that 
in all his public life he had never known a political 
convention which could maintain such an interest 
for a period often days! 

The demand for union and cooperation in for- 
eign missionary work grew rapidly and in June, 
1 9 10, reached a high-water mark in the World 
Missionary Conference in Edinburgh, Scotland. 
Members of communions that had previously held 
aloof from these Union Conferences were present 
and prominent at Edinburgh because, as they said, 
u they could not afford to stay away." Edinburgh 
was another Pentecost. "The archbishops of Can- 
terbury and York, moderators of the Presbyterian 
Churches of Scotland, pastors of dissenting 
churches of Wesley an and Baptist faiths, mem- 



H4 Reconstruction of the American Church 

bers of the British House of Lords, Danish nobles 
and Swedish Bishops, German professors, Swiss 
preachers, Australians, New Zealanders, South 
Africans, Americans — white, black, yellow, red, 
men of every clime and people — passed in quick 
succession under the inexorable seven-minute rule, 
and then bowed in prayer under an Anglican 
Bishop or a Presbyterian pastor." Recognition 
of the importance of the Edinburgh Conference 
increases as the date recedes. It has been said 
that at Jerusalem in the first Council of the 
Church, a few Jews met to discuss whether they 
would give the Gospel to the Gentiles; at Edin- 
burgh thousands of Gentiles met to discuss whether 
they would give the Gospel to the Jews. 

As a result of the Conference at Edinburgh a 
petition, breathing with prayer, was sent to the 
Churches of Christ throughout the world. The 
message of that petition in substance was: "We 
are seeing that the Church of Christ to-day faces 
a conflict like that of the first and second centuries. 
We must enlist cooperation of Christian effort. 
Underneath our outward differences there is real 
unity of aim and purpose. Shall we plant in 
non-Christian lands a multitude of warring sects 



Christian Union 115 

or one united Church of Christ — a Church to 
penetrate the national life of the people and at 
the same time to unify the Christian programme 
in the world." The influence of that Edinburgh 
Conference is penetrating to the heart of our 
denominations. Dr. Robert E. Speer, in an article 
setting forth "The World Task of the Presby- 
terian Church," says, "Our Church is of the John 
the Baptist persuasion. Our mission is not the 
absorption of other bodies, but a partial testimony 
to the truth of God and our disappearance in the 
larger body of Christ." Likewise the American 
Baptist Board of Foreign Missions in September, 
19 1 2, recommended as their policy, "that to the 
utmost practical extent there should be cooperation 
with other Christian bodies in the same field." 
And this desire for the hoops of a closer union can 
be reproduced to-day in nearly every communion 
of Christendom* 

A story is still running its course concerning two 
chaplains on the battlefield of Fredericksburgh, 
the one a Protestant and the other a Catholic. 
After a day of weary toil over the wounded and 
dying the two Chaplains in sheer exhaustion lay 
down together on the cold ground. As the chill 



n6 Reconstruction of the American Church 

frost fell the Catholic called to the Protestant 
to put their two blankets together. And so they 
did. Then the Catholic chaplain shook with 
laughter. "I was thinking," he said, "how we have 
defeated the devil! You a Protestant and I a 
Catholic under the same blanket!" Great crises 
of suffering will be good for the cause of Christ 
to-day if it shows us that Christian Union is not 
so sadly off as Humpty-Dumpty that had a great 
fall. Surely the King's horses and the King's 
men can put it together again. 

We should note also the move of union in City 
evangelism. Union evangelistic services have in 
the past twenty-five years become very popular in 
England and America. The conviction grows that 
no single denomination can successsfully evangelize 
a city, to say nothing of a nation. Nearly all the 
great revivalists of the last century have pro- 
claimed their messages in interdenominational 
meetings. Finley, Moody, the Welsh evangelist, 
Gypsy Smith, Scoville, Billy Sunday, make an in- 
terdenominational plea. The great evangelist of 
China, Rev. Ding Mei, has stirred all the mission- 
aries to join with him in his great appeals. The 
Union meetings in Hankow mingled representa- 



Christian Union 117 

tives of twenty-five societies in services attended 
each night by ten thousand people. In Manchuria, 
Turkey, and Japan also the great evangelists 
gather to themselves the labours of all Christian 
denominations. 

Anyone who steps into a Union Evangelistic 
meeting immediately has the spirit of Sectarian- 
ism driven out of him, as Jesus drove the evil 
spirits out of those in Galilee. There in the 
Smith, or Torrey, or Sunday meetings Presby- 
terian, Baptist, Disciple, Congregationalist — all 
unite on the great hymn, 

Onward Christian Soldiers, marching as to war, 
With the Cross of Jesus, going on before. 
We are not divided; all one body we, 
One in hope and doctrine, one in charity. 

Dr. Brown tells of a pathetic case (the humor of 
which is exceeded only by its tragedy) of a man 
who was convinced that none should partake of 
the Lord's Supper who did not share his peculiar 
ideas of the sacrament. So this man was the sole 
administrator and partaker amid hundreds of de- 
vout believers, including his own wife. "He 
humbly hoped that others might be saved and that 



n8 Reconstruction of the American Church 

in Heaven they might see the error of their ways. 
There is something almost sublime about such 
fanaticism, exalting oneself as sole judge of the 
truth, unchurching all the millions of fellow Chris- 
tians and calmly subordinating the entire work of 
the Church of God to the idiosyncracies of his own 
mind." "Argument with such a man is futile. His 
case is psychological. A surgical operation might 
be considered but it would give no relief unless his 
entire mental machinery were removed and new 
works put in." Such a case is not to laugh at, 
it is to pity, for it is sin, the sin of Pharaseeism, 
separatism. 

We should note again the flow of Union 
through the Federated Council of the Churches of 
Christ of America. The sectarians shook their 
heads dubiously when ten years ago the call was 
issued to delegates to come to New York to effect 
a federation of American Churches. It was 
prophesized that federation could not be accom- 
plished, but it was accomplished. Much is yet to 
be realized but through the Federated Council a 
united effort is now made against the social evil, 
intemperance, child labour, or unpatriotism. Strik- 
ing instances of the objective of the Federation 



Christian Union 119 

was the dispatch of Shailer Matthews and Sidney 
Gulick to Japan to express the love of seventeen 
million American Christians to the people of 
Japan, and the present contemplated Crusade for 
the Missionary Conquest of the world to Christ. 

During the French-English War of the last 
century two English frigates at night mistook each 
other for enemies. They joined in a death grapple 
and shot each other to pieces until one ship sur- 
rendered. In the gray dawn it was found that 
both were English ! It was not a victory for Eng- 
land but one for the enemy. Christian Churches 
are under a divine necessity now to cease firing 
into one anothers' ranks and direct their united 
fire against the Sin of the World. And it shall 
be found highest truth that, with the spirit of 
unity in the bond of peace brooding over the 
waters of our modern Christianity, individualistic 
disunion can be pronounced good only to the eye 
that is creative of a something better. 

A glance at the war work of the Young Men's 
Christian Association gives us a conception of the 
mighty mesh of organized and united ministry 
possible to the Church. When the War broke 
out the Y.M.C.A. heard the Macedonian call to 



120 Reconstruction of the American Church 

to go to the help of Europe. They went in for 
service, for physical comforts and spiritual com- 
forts to the hard pressed fighters. Army officers 
who knew best the question of the soldier's effi- 
ciency insisted that something was required beyond 
equipment and drill to keep men keyed up to battle- 
strain. That something additional was morale, 
Y.M.C.A. gave a religion stout enough to sustain 
against homesickness, potent enough to dissipate 
cowardice, idealistic enough to electrify patriotism, 
conscience-stirring enough to annul temptation, 
thrilling enough to make a man play the man. 
Morale was accomplished by forging character in 
the white heat of religious conviction. It was a 
gnarled problem that confronted the Army, sure- 
ly, to give them religion without setting fire to 
sectarian controversies. Y.M.C.A. gave the boys 
a religion with spinal stiffness and heart vitality, 
God in Christ the need of the world. It was 
shoulder-to-shoulder brotherhood under the con- 
viction that God meant men to be righteous. If 
a man stood by God, God was bound in eternal 
contract to stand by him. "Faith is the willing- 
ness to bet your life there is a God." 

This great spirit of unity, this unison or union 



Christian Union 121 

of the Body of Christ must be conserved to the 
avenues of peace. Is it alone in bloody conflict 
we are to be One in Him? Or does the Divine 
Compulsion hold us also in the days of Peace? 
It is Carlyle's "hungry" question, begging at our 
doors for bread of answer. The days and nights 
are listening eagerly to hear the word of reply. 
A period of national Reconstruction will doubt- 
less follow the present war as periods of Recon- 
struction followed wars in the past. Someone has 
it that progress gets its birth pangs in misery. To 
an extent never before realized it is felt that out 
of the world war of to-day shall come a recon- 
struction in social economy, politics, business, in- 
ternational relations and — please God! — in the 
Church of Christ. The sons of God are waking 
to penitential tears. The old wrangle about forms 
and orthodoxy will give way to a simpler and 
more direct religion. The great attainment of 
the Spirit of Unity is struggling for voice and 
articulation in Union. In the world revival and 
reconstruction soon to come, it is devoutly to be 
prayed that the Church may show such adapta- 
tion and ability for federation as to bridge over 
the world chasm with a new arch of hope. In the 



122 Reconstruction of the American Church 

new call for cooperation and federation individual 
communions must show the Baptist's spirit of will- 
ingness to decrease in order that the Church Uni- 
versal may increase. And then perfect union and 
federation may come when each denomination will 
fulfill Goldsmith's ideal of the preacher, ideal of 
sweet and unselfish contribution to the total 
Truth. 

He held the lamp of truth that day 
So low that none could miss the way, 
And yet so high to bring in sight 
That picture fair, the world's great light; 
That gazing up — the lamp between — 
The hand that held it scarce was seen. 



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